Existential Death Anxiety

I read an article in Newsweek last week on Woody Allen. He has a new film coming out soon called "Vicky Cristina Barcelona". What I found interesting though was Allen's obsession with death. Apparently he lies awake at night "terrified of the void." He considers making movies a great diversion "because it's much more pleasant to be obsessed over how the hero gets out of his predicament than it is over how I get out of mine." His philosophy is that the universe is random and life has no meaning. He is also superstitious, he has to cut his breakfast banana seven times or something bad might happen to his family.

I too suffer from existential death anxiety although I don't lay awake at night worrying about it. I deal with it by trying not to think about it. I suppose for those people who believe they're going to heaven where everything will be wonderful the anxiety is less or nonexistent. If they believe they'll meet long lost friends and relatives or find virgins or whatever then they are comforted and reassured. If you believe you will not only live on in some sense but that you "go to a better place", well that would certainly be a load off your mind. But like Allen I don't believe this. I figure when you die that's pretty much it, most likely. It would be nice to believe in heaven but it's not something one can just simply decide to do. Would Woody be happier if he were not an atheist? Apparently, according to the psychologists, even if we're not thinking about death it can and does cause anxiety unconsciously. Predator death anxiety supposedly arises when an individual harms another human or living organism. So even though someone isn't thinking about death they could be acting out in response to their anxiety. Maybe that's why hunters like killing animals – it's their way of dealing with the prospect of their own demise. On an unconscious level no doubt. And I imagine there is a long list of things people do to keep from dealing with "the great void."

For myself, I just seem to have trouble with the notion that I'm here now and have been for years but at any moment I could be gone...