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One can draw upon many sources for inspiration. I was 4 years old when the film Cool Hand Luke was released and until I discovered it years later, I found an affinity to the material that continues to stay with me to this day. The single most identifying character trait that strikes me as most redeeming in the Luke character played by Paul Newman is in his determination and volition. The value of such a trait can be clearly understood if one considers that the principles behind this powerful drive are just and not acted out in vain with the mind of a non-reflective zealot.

Life can be a struggle, and a challenge, that does not just simply give us easy answers. It takes work to sift out a higher understanding, it takes patience to better understand our role in a world whose framework consists of many layers, and to progress through this world, we often meet disappointment, conflict and tension between ideals and/or others that stand in our way. The universe can provide us with a multitude of exhibitions that champion the human soul over a chaotic experience. I’m not sure just how many times in my life when I could recount examples that would somehow help me dissipate anxiety and slowly aid me in dissolving the plights I was facing. Sometimes the simplest of inspirations come from sources you wouldn’t typically consider.

Quite possibly the best prison drama ever made, Cool Hand Luke (1967) follows a man, incarcerated for drunken petty vandalism, who has so much fight in him that he continuously finds a way to beat the odds. That tenacity is dramatized in an early scene during which Luke manages to win a poker game despite having been dealt some terrible cards. (“Sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand,” Luke says, thereby giving the character his nickname and the movie its title.) Luke triumphs, often, because he perseveres. Even in the corrupt place where he’s imprisoned, he carries himself with dignity. Sure, he engages in the not especially dignified stunt of eating 50 eggs to win a bet—but more significant than that, he refuses to ingratiate himself with either the guards or the intimidating inmate Dragline, who calls the shots among the prisoners. In the process, Luke becomes something of a spiritual beacon for the other inmates. At various points in the movie, it’s even hinted that he’s a Christ-like figure.

Luke, who rebels without harming others, is worthy of our attention. But people who hold civilization hostage, harm others, and manage to grab publicity in the process aren’t—or at least shouldn’t be.

Getting his peers to worship him isn’t Luke’s goal, however. He rebels against the unjust world he’s trapped in not to impress anyone but because he has to answer to his inner god. In fact, his celebrity status in prison can feel like an unbearable responsibility; his awareness of how much he embodies hope for the other men weighs on him, suffocatingly so at times. At a certain point in the film—shortly after he’s recaptured following his second escape from prison—Luke is sprawled out on his back, physically bloodied and spiritually bowed, shackled hand and foot, as his fellow prisoners are gathered around him, clamoring for the next show of his incredible will. Unable to muster it, he shouts, “Stop feedin’ off me! … I can’t breathe! Give me some air!”

You could say that Luke has a “self-destructive” streak (and that Christ had one too). But it is inextricable from his self-respect; he’d rather live—and die—on his own terms than accept an eviscerated existence. Luke is engaged in a daily existential battle for his soul—and as the boxing scene helps to demonstrate, he’s one hell of a heroic anti-hero.

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Luke: [Discussing God and the rain] Let him go. Bam, Bam.

Dragline: Knock it off, Luke. You can’t talk about Him that way.

Luke: Are you still believin’ in that big bearded Boss up there? You think he’s watchin’ us?

Dragline: Get in here. Ain’t ya scared? Ain’t ya scared of dyin’?

Luke: Dyin’? Boy, he can have this little life any time he wants to. Do ya hear that? Are ya hearin’ it? Come on. You’re welcome to it, ol’ timer. Let me know you’re up there. Come on. Love me, hate me, kill me, anything. Just let me know it.

[He looks around]

Luke: I’m just standin’ in the rain talkin’ to myself.

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I don’t care if it rains or freezes
Long as I got my plastic Jesus
Sittin’ on the dashboard of my car

Comes in colors, pink and pleasant
Glows in the dark, it’s iridescent
Take it with you when you travel far

Get yourself a sweet madonna
Dressed in rhinestone, settin’ on a
Pedestal of Abalone Shells

Goin’ 90, I ain’t scary
Cause I got the Virgin Mary
Assuring me that I won’t go to hell

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