“Being on a tightrope is living, everything else is waiting.” - Karl Wallenda
Tightrope walking has been a tantalizing feat admired and feared by breathless onlookers since ancient Greece. It is a seemingly impossible, perilous sport (even outlawed in France in the 5th Century) requiring grit and focus. Walkers appear super-human, defying nature in their ability to do what they do in spite of the infinite number of difficulties threatening their success.
The high expectations of the spectating crowd, decades of family legacy, and flurries of media attention could easily cause self-consciousness that distracts the walker from the task of putting one foot in front of the other. The thinness and length of the wire, the wind, the sheer height of the journey and unpredictability of weather conditions all stack up to serious risks of failure.