When you live near Niagara Falls, as I did for 20 years of my life, its magnitude and mystique begin to stream through your lifeblood. My parents honeymooned there; in later years, we schlepped all of our out-of-town guests there upon request; and one woman's threat to jump with her child into the rushing waters led to that child's adoption into my extended family. In fact, plunges over the Falls (whether accidental or suicidal) are so common that only the very rare survivors make big news.

Needless to say, then, it was more than curiosity that compelled me to watch Nik Wallenda's historic high-wire walk over the Falls last weekend: it was my own history and heritage beckoning.

Yet, the sheer spectacle had a pull of its own, too, as it apparently did for the estimated 112,000 people who gathered to watch on the American and Canadian sides of the Falls and the 13.1 million who viewed the feat on television along with them.

Yes, we are a rubbernecking species, drawn irresistibly and inexplicably to the drama posed by danger and death. Whether our own or whether experienced vicariously in our role as voyeurs, our fascination with risky behavior is attributed to various possible causes: Freud's death wish, genetic predisposition, risk-taking personalities, the adrenaline rush, and simply the pleasure of relief that comes when we witness someone other than ourselves suffer.

But more than the psychological, sociological, and scientific explanations, I am intrigued by the aesthetic accounts of our infatuation with danger. In The Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 18th-century British statesman Edmund Burke famously distinguishes between the beautiful and the sublime, linking each to a primal passion: the beautiful to love, and the sublime to fear. Burke defines beautiful objects as those characterized by small, smooth, and delicate features and defines the sublime as characterized by vastness, infinity, obscurity, and magnitude. In so doing, Burke expands on the classical Greek text, On the Sublime, attributed to Longinus, which states that the sublime "transports us with wonder." Burke further connects the sublime to "whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain and danger … Whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror."

The sublime elicits a kind of controlled fear, which Burke says is accompanied by an inherent pleasure, a notion that the existence of every roller coaster, ski slope, NASCAR race, and horror flick would seem to confirm—along with the tourist industry built around Niagara Falls (once considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World), and the millions of eyes rapt upon Wallenda's treacherous walk over its vast abyss.

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There's a fine line between sublime and morbid, however, and I was hesitant to watch Wallenda's high wire walk until I learned of ABC's insistence that he wear a safety harness during the stunt. Wallenda's reluctance to do so given his inexperience in wearing one is understandable, but ABC was right to insist on the measure, stating beforehand, "We're going to have millions of families watching this event … we don't want to give people a reason to have to tell their children to leave the room." A few vultures complained that with no danger of death there would be no point in watching, but they were, happily, proven wrong. The three-hour show was an entertainment success for ABC, resulting in the top-rated viewership of the night and the highest Friday night rankings on ABC in five years; the fulfillment of a lifelong dream for Wallenda; and an evening of good old-fashioned entertainment (high technology and million-dollar price tag, notwithstanding) for countless viewers.

Approached by customs officials when he reached the end of his walk on the Canadian side of the Falls, and asked by the officials in a seemingly scripted but lighthearted moment what his purpose was, Wallenda declared, "To inspire people around the world" and to "pay tribute to his ancestors." While the definition of hero has changed dramatically over human history, a feat such as this harkens back to the oldest conceptions of the heroic, which center on noble lineage, daring feats, and extraordinary courage. Wallenda certainly didn't inspire me to attempt anything remotely like that sort of daredevil act, but I can say that witnessing his daring feat demonstrated powerfully what both steel-mindedness and generations of training can accomplish in a mortal human being.

Thus perhaps the greatest feats of The Great Wallendas center on family and their longheld traditions. The current generation's patriarch, Karl Wallenda, has been married to his wife, Helen, for over 40 years. Nik Wallenda is a seventh-generation tightrope walker, father of three, and married to an eighth-generation acrobat. I can think of little today outside a monarchy that has continued for so many generations. Furthermore, Wallenda's unabashed Christian faith—evident, but not obnoxiously so, in the prayers he shared with his family before the walk and in the unceasing prayers and praise to Christ picked up by his microphone throughout the terrifying 25 minutes—made for a truly sublime event.

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Of course, it is God himself who is most sublime—and beautiful—containing within his person and his nature all of those qualities we seek in taking risks, seeking thrills, and gazing on wondrous sights. Yet, we cannot see him, not in all his glory. Ultimately, our fascination with the sublime is but an expression of our longing for him.

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