That doesn't follow, even if he meant what he said entirely literally.[1] An analogy: many recipes have one or two ingredients that contribute most of the flav

That doesn't follow, even if he meant what he said entirely literally.[1] An analogy: many recipes have one or two ingredients that contribute most of the flavour -- but you can't optimize a chocolate cake for tastiness by forgetting about the cake and guzzling a bowlful of cocoa and sugar. More concretely, balance is very important in most people's lives. And even if family life isn't the kind of thing that necessarily 'wears thin' the way some activities do, who's to say he would have been the same kind of father or husband without all those other sides of his life? Maybe his adventurous spirit is part of what attracted his wife to him, and maybe he would have found it harder to be a good father if he hadn't also been fulfilled in other ways. [1] I don't think the only alternatives are 'literally true' or 'crowd-pleasing bullshit'. He may have meant it sincerely but not quite literally, i.e. he may genuinely value his family above all else, and see them as the greatest contributor to his enjoyment of life, even if they aren't literally more exciting than jumping out of an aeroplane.