Escape from Anxiety While Socrates' life teaches about virtue, Luke's life teaches about nonconformity. Though these topics are worthy in themselves, Socrates' and Luke's lives more importantly show the absolute necessity of the life-saving anxiolytic affects offered by belief. Life begins free of anxiety, but developing rationality soon leads to an anxiety-crisis. By erecting all-encompassing belief systems, anxiety is abated. Consequently, if this analysis holds true, then life is anxiety-free when lived according to a belief system and anxiety-ridden when it is not. Death is preferable to a life ridden with anxiety. Ironically, then, in the cases of Socrates and Luke, survival in a life of anxiety requires attaining a belief system that leads to the death of those who hold it. Humans are brought into this world in a state free of anxiety. An infant lives in a simplistic moment-to-moment stimulus/response type of world. Soon thereafter, with cerebral development, the first glimpses of language and rationale emerge. Thus begins a period of question asking that continues until death or aphasia. First questions involve a "what." "What is that thing over there? It is a spoon." Then comes the "how." "How does that spoon work? Its rounded shape allows it to carry food." Finally, there is the "why." "Why was that spoon made? To serve the purpose of feeding." Consequently, the questioner soon wonders, "What is my purpose?" Realizing that, at that moment, a spoon has more purpose than he does, this fictional questioner falls into a state of extreme anxiety. Anxiety differs from fear in that fear is directed towards one distinct idea or object, while anxiety is a generally vague, non-directed feeling of fear. For example, consider the act of purchasing a car by someone past the anxiety-crisis but before the construction of a belief system. Without a purpose provided by belief, the buyer has no grounding in which to make his decision of which car to buy. Eventually, because of his lack of a belief system, he must choose a car at random. A sense of unease results because there is a general feeling that this event is important and should require at least some justification beyond chance. Unease is exponentially increased when decisions involve one's actual life and being. This is anxiety. Belief is thus utilized in the battle against anxiety by acting as a paradigm in making life choices. Note that this sense of anxiety is a negation of the Sartreian sense, which claims that the post-anxiety-crisis questioning causes even more anxiety than before because of emergent feelings of responsibility. Without intervention, every second of life after the anxiety-crisis is anxiety ridden. A belief system that is more all-encompassing than anxiety is needed to distract from one's anxiety by giving purpose. "All-encompassing" refers to the quality of a belief that allows it to influence not only every action, but every thought as well. Socrates' and Luke's systems of virtue and nonconformity fit this definition perfectly. With Socratic virtue, every action is to be judged and rated according to its virtue. The most virtuous act is then chosen. Also, as Socrates' discovered, even thought and speech must be rated on a scale of virtue as well. Given the enormous number of actions and thoughts, virtue-based philosophy admirably serves the purpose of combating anxiety. Lukean nonconformity similarly serves this purpose well. Nonconformity for Luke mainly takes the form of repeated escapes, disrespecting authority figures on both the inside and outside of prison walls, and refusing to accept a superior position in the prison hierarchy for himself. The great amount of energy, both physical and mental, required by nonconformity more than offsets life's inherent preponderance of anxiety. By living according to their belief systems, the lives of Socrates and Luke are free of anxiety. Both characters' extremely calm dispositions in the most stressful of all situations-death-demonstrates their freedom from anxiety. While Socrates tranquilly waited for life to end, Crito and Apollodorus broke down into tears. Illustrating his calm state of mind Socrates replies, "What is this you strange fellows. It is mainly for this reason that I sent the women away, to avoid such unseemliness." (117e) If Crito and Apollodorus had been more observant students, they would have followed Socrates' lead and not become anxious over death, or anything. Despite Dragline's emotional pleas to give himself up, Luke remains cool and once again chooses to follow his tried and true belief system. With his smile, Luke shows that he is free from anxiety both in his reply to Captain's ultimatum and in his semi-conscious stupor after he is shot. When their belief systems are set aside, the lives of Socrates and Luke become ridden with anxiety. The scene in which Luke gets "his mind made right" is the only scene in Cool Hand Luke that depicts Luke in an anxious state. According to the preceding analysis, an anxious state for Luke could only be attained by abandoning his belief system. Predictably, the mind-correcting scene is the only scene in which Luke completely surrenders his nonconformist belief system. The hypothesis is thus tested and confirmed. With the resulting anxiety, this is most likely the time at which Luke realized that death is preferable to anxiety. There are no scenes in The Trial and Death of Socrates in which Socrates is depicted as even slightly anxious. He could not possibly feel anxious because he remains entirely dedicated to his belief system throughout the entirety of The Trial and Death of Socrates. This dedication is simply the result of his life experience and maturity. Probably, perhaps when Luke's age, Socrates had experienced the anxiety that results from surrendering a belief system and therefore chose to stay true to his beliefs during and after the trial. A fear of anxiety is proven by his actions, which show that he prefers death to anxiety. The importance of Socrates' and Luke's belief systems is demonstrated by the fact that both consciously choose to die, rather than live anxiously without their systems. Socrates could have saved his life simply by making a more logical, less derisive defense, or by choosing to escape into exile with the help of Crito. Luke could have saved his life simply by conforming to the rules and relinquishing his escapist ways, or by giving into the bosses "deal" when he was apprehended for the third time. However, these alternatives would have compromised both Socrates' virtue-based belief system and Luke's conformity-based belief system, and consequently, their anxiety abating abilities. Contemplating the specter of living in a struggle against anxiety barehanded forces the subjects to choose death over life. Claiming that survival depends upon a belief system that directly produces death may seem counterintuitive, but this couterintuition is based on the misunderstood meaning of survival. As Socrates' says, "The most important thing is not life, but the good life." (48b) Life in itself is not worthwhile, only living the good life justly and virtuously is of any worth. If the good life is the virtuous life, then the good life is also synonymous with the life that most efficiently distracts against anxiety. Yet, distraction is subjective, so each individual must choose the belief system that "fits" him best. The sociological factors that contribute to the decision to choose one particular system (perhaps a religious revelation or an injustice) are irrelevant; simply put by Luke, "A man's got to go his own way sometimes." The important aspect is the fact that without this one belief system, life is not worth living. Socrates and Luke thus choose to die happily instead of living anxiously. As each person encounters the anxiety-crisis, a belief system must be erected in order to overcome it. Consequently, the level of meaningfulness attributed to a belief is not based on the tenets of the belief itself, but the degree to which the belief reduces anxiety. In this simple inverse relationship, the stronger the belief, the more anxiety is reduced. However, knowledge of the latent purpose of this strong belief may weaken it, increasing anxiety. Conclusion: do not read this paper. Or, less elliptically stated, question your belief system and you will suffer the dreadful consequences!