A friend of mine back in Scouts had this on his backpack.

He was an adventuresome guy. Spent large chunks of his mid-adulthood climbing mountains in Spain. Not a bad life.

For a good number of years I cursed his name, however, and the ultimately the name of Rusty Schwartz, an astronaut.

You see, when my life seemed too codebound and boring, when all I saw were the insides of buildings, this phrase would echo through my head.

"Adventure is the essence of the human spirit."

I got to paint that saying above the doorway of my first house as a daily reminder and entendre: the house itself an adventure.

It was claimed* that Schwartz might have been the author of this phrase. The original context was long since lost by my friend Paul.

I contacted Schwartz on the pre-SPAM Internet** and he himself thought it might have been the sort of thing he'd say, but he coudn't recall uttering those exact words.

His response ended with "what do you do now?"

*By NASA, no less.

** There indeed was such a thing.