reiteration

"When I say 'yes' to the other, in the form of a promise or an agreement or an oath, the 'yes' must be absolutely inaugural.... Inauguration is a 'yes'. I say 'yes' as a starting point. Nothing precedes the 'yes'. The 'yes' is the moment of institution, of the origin; it is absolutely originary. But when you say 'yes', you imply that in the next moment you will have to confirm the 'yes' by a second 'yes'. When I say 'yes' I immediately say 'yes, yes'. I commit myself to confirm my commitment in the next second, and then tomorrow, and then the day after tomorrow. That means that a 'yes' immediately duplicates itself, doubles itself. You cannot say 'yes' without saying 'yes, yes'. That implies memory in that promise. I promise to keep the memory of the first 'yes'. In a wedding, for instance, or in a promise, when you say, 'yes, I agree', 'I will', you imply 'I will say "I will" tomorrow'...otherwise there is no promise. That means the 'yes' keeps in advance the memory of its own beginning.... So 'yes' has to be repeated and repeated immediately. That is what I call iterability....The second 'yes' will have to reinaugurate, to reinvent, the first one. If tomorrow you do not reinvent today's inauguration, you will be dead. So the inauguration has to be reinvented every day" (Caputo, John D. Deconstruction in a Nutshell: Conversations with Jacques Derrida. pp27-28).