Subtleties

(From a scene in the book "Assassin of Gor" by John Norman; the characters are using intricate knots of rope of 50 to 100 knots to keep out intruders and show them whether anyone had entered their room -- because if an intruder undid the knot, they would not be able to put it back together the same way. The narrating character, Tarl Cabot, had designed a very complicated knot and showed it to his companion, Elizabeth; she wanted to not only learn his knot but design her own as well, because this would be fun and she could make one that would show her personality. Though he thought they should just use the same knot and that would be difficult enough, he was persuaded.)


It is perhaps suprising, but I think there would have been little difficulty telling which knot had been tied by a man and which by a woman; moreover, though this was much subtler, Elizabeth's knot did, in its way, remind me of her. It was intelligent, intricate, rather aesthetically done and, here and there, in little bendings and loopings, playful. In such a small thing as these knots I was again reminded of the central differences in sex and personality that divide human beings, differences expressed in thousands of subtleties, many of which are often overlooked, as in the way a piece of cloth might be folded, a letter formed, a color remembered, a phrase turned. In all things, it seemed to me, we manifest ourselves, each differently.