The possibility of death is what creates passion.
When we feel the possibility of going-under, of the final “brick wall” of impulse, this impulse temporarily pools up and experiences a supererogatory effect. This effect is what we subjectively experience as passion in its various forms, such as for example lust, sorrow, guilt, ecstasy or love.
And of course those “impulses” themselves, in their more normal state, are only more removed and less forceful instances of poolings-up, of dying process.
If we define this process as “suffering”, as Shopenhauer did, then we get the equation, “life=suffering”, or “life=death (dying-process)”.
I suppose that must produce disaffection in all but a minority of people. 
Meh.
Some people are inspired by the necessity of gain rather than the possibility of loss.
Spoiled people might see otherwise though. Imagination befuddles them.
Could not disagree more with your OP, MM.
The possibility of death is at best a catalyst for impatience. Sure, it can increase the urgency of passion, but passion happens just fine even in those young and innocent enough not even to have heard of, or at least understood death. Have you ever read Faust? It’s been a while, but I seem to remember the second part of the tragedy involving the ultimate Yes-saying offspring of Faust and Helen as passionate as is probably possible, though (spoiler) tragically dying as a result of not fearing death one bit. Nietzsche naturally chimes the same message - you’re a Nietzschean, aren’t you? His messages repeatedly and directly repudiate your claims.
No, I am not “a Nietzschean”. I have no problem contradicting what Nietzsche said or seemed to have said. And in this topic I am speaking of what passion IS, not (necessarily) about the effects of passion.
Instinct is a kind of self-frustration, a bottling-up force based on the subjective motive-desire’s delimitation by conditions environmental or personal. Whatever your perception MUST or CAN recognize but reason is unable to process fully will fall to “instinct”. Keep in mind these are just words trying to grasp the reality of what is going on, and the words can be inadequate. Try not to confuse reality with how we talk about reality. The line between talking about reality and talking about how we talk about reality is called “philosophy”.
Now, there are different kinds and degrees of passion. That is the direction in which your critique should move. We might search into the extent to which certain kinds and degrees of passion arise from what primary motive-sources, and how-why, and to what extent they are bundled together into “drives”. All good stuff to get into, eventually. The OP is only a starting point.
For one thing, on the issue of the limitations of language in thought, “death” and “life” are not opposed terms. Nor does either need necessarily to be spoken about morally (or amorally) in order to have meaning, to reveal things about reality, or to act as that upon which other discoveries and insights may be built.
The possibility of death is what creates the probability of life (that which avoids death). So in an evolutionary sense, the possibility of death establishes stronger life.
Life is that which avoids death and its passions are, as you imply, the various forms of that effort. So I couldn’t say that “the possibility of death creates passion”, but rather the “possibility of death establishes stronger passions as the normative of life”.
The passions aren’t “created” by the possibility of death, but rather merely strengthen by it. The passions have to already be there, else there is no possibility of death. Passions create the possibility of life and thus the possibility of death.