The Knight in Rusty Armor

The Knight in Rusty Armor

The Knight in rusty armor depicts our mental processes, or cognition that plays a

complex and dramatic role in my life. I have learned that our cognition makes us human.

I can cope only by first sensing and understanding my environment, just like the knight.

sometimes I misperceive and wrongly interpret certain situations, causing problems for

myself. My expectations and response partly determine how I see the world. My

attitudes, suspicions, and conclusions about others also determine how I relate to people.

like the knight my hopes, dreams, and/or fears become self-fulfilling prophesies and

determine the future to some extent. As we saw in chapter 2, our values and goals

determine the directions our lives take. The knowledge of human behavior, including

self-help skills, and our rational planning partly determine our success in achieving our

life goals. Our motivation also determines how far we go in the directions set by our

needs and values. The discrepancies between reality and our ideals will determine how

satisfied we are with ourselves and our lives.

The knight from an early age viewed himself as unattractive because his nurse told him

that he had a face only a mother could love, this early feed back encouraged him to where

a face mask that did serve the purpose of protection from dragons and battles but also

helped him to hide his unattractive face. I feel that this prompted him to pursue being a

knight which gave him positive feed back as a defender and hero. This was a seemingly

good idea on the outside but in reality he was hiding who he really was, he neglected his

role as husband and father by ignoring his wife, and son. His wife Juliet tried to tell him

that he was not rescuing damsels in distress and slaying dragons because he was such a

good knight, but that he was doing it for himself, it made him feel good about himself

and not so much for the good of others. Juliet made at good point when she told the

knight that he did not love her but that he loved the idea of her loving him, meaning that

he did not give love but took love. I believe this to be a mistake many people make in

relationships they do not have love for themselves, and cannot give love,