While we are on the subject of philosophy, I find on something of a philosophical note, the interesting ways and manners in which truth can unveil itself. Of course "unveiling" has a distinct meaning in Heidegger, but I am using this more generally, just to mean how the "deep truths of life" come to us/emerge/unveil from unexpected sources. I am reminded, then, in this case of a 'Charmed' episode where Prue Halliwell (Shannen Doherty) is trying to save somebody from the Angel of Death. She ultimately is confronted by the Angel of Death who tells her that he is not good or evil, but simply inevitable. She has to let go of her hatred of Death and see him as simply part of the natural course of things. Thus death from the point of view of hairless apes like us or the point of view of galaxies or even the whole universe, is in fact neither good nor bad, it simply is. Fearing it does not make it not so. Thus, one way or another it must be accepted, it must be seen as an inevitable part of the "rerum naturum". I really think on this subject the only way to sort of deal with our own annihilation or the fear thereof is to say that as long as we are fearing it, we have not encountered it. To fear, we must be alive. Therefore we have not an object of fear to fear. What is it to fear without an object? Anxiety. Undirected fear is anxiety. It is the antithesis of rationality. As human beings we must seek to be rational. We must seek to free ourselves from irrational fear. It is not rational to fear that which by definition we can never experience. We cannot by definition "experience" annihilation. We cannot experience annihilation, anymore than we really "experience" falling asleep. One moment we are drifting off in bed. The next moment the alarm clock goes off. Death is the same thing, except without the alarm clock. Either way, there is no "experience", and therefore no object of fear. Death is not bad. Death is not good. Death is inevitable, as Prue Halliwell came to see. I take comfort in knowing though that as death is inevitable so is birth. And perhaps even out of the ashes of the current universe new big bangs could spring forth, as some theories hint at. And so life (and death) goes on, ad infinitum.
We are, as Gregory Corso wrote in one of his poems, 'Homer', "alive, as always, forever ignorant of that death you'll never know."
Fearing the inevitable which cannot be even experienced is just not rational. The only thing to do is enjoy our moment in the sun. We all die, but spending our time fearing this just means we are not ever really alive, and that is just sad. Myself, I will leave eternity to the multiverse, and enjoy my brief tenure as a gene-carrying robot for all it is worth! :-)