I gotta have my orange juice.

By what means is attachment established? Very simple now. By a word spoken, may it be only three letters, “yes,” by which a person is willing to stand by this one word for the rest of his life, or her life—that is speech. To . . . speak with potency, with fertility, with fecundity, with procreational power, comes from our opportunity to throw ourselves behind our own word, to verify this word. . . .

If that word is true, then it has to come true. The English, wonderful phrase for verification is “to come true.” You have to make it come true. So the truth is always planted into this world, gentlemen, by a word, and the acts follow. And that’s how the spirit becomes flesh. You say, “I am this girl’s bridegroom.” And it takes you 50 years to become it. And that’s why the declaration is so important. The declaration in itself would be nonsense, if you wouldn’t do anything with it. It allows you now to make it come true. That’s why you have to say it. Before, she will not budge. That’s why at that moment you are the bridegroom, because you go at anchor, and you declare which direction from now on your various steps shall have, or in which light they shall be interpreted. . . .

For example, you take two men. One, engaged; and the other, married. And they take ship, and sail from New York to New Zealand. Well, the engaged one everybody will suspect of running to New Zealand, so that he has not to marry the girl. The husband we’ll investigate and we’ll say, “The poor man has to make a living. He can only . . . make it by selling sewing machines in New Zealand. So now they are separate for a long time.” But he got married before to express his willingness to stick it out.

The same act, gentlemen, like separation, for a lover . . . and a bridegroom are very different, because the bridegroom has already declared that all his steps from now on must be seen as circling around his power to build this nest, to come back, to send money, to raise his children, or what-not, to acquire a new citizenship, if you want, or a place in New Zealand. That’s all possible, but then the wife and children will come after him. That is, not one step a man takes, for example, after his wedding, can be understood except in the light of this first declaration. (Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Cross of Reality, 1953)