What does home smell like? How much freedom does a child need? How vital are fear, selfishness, and instinct? Reinhold Messner outlines his journey in stages from a mountain boy in South Tyrol to the greatest adventurer of our time, a combative politician, an engaged farmer, a hiking companion of managers and politicians, the founder of a unique museum landscape, a husband, a father of four, and a family man. In countless expeditions, he has tested how survival works. Today, he candidly reflects on seven decades that were early on marked by extreme natural experiences and encounters with death, writing about ambition and shame, nightmares and aging, new beginnings, and the ability to let go in the end.