noah and i are presently watching “man on wire” concerning philippe petit‘s tightrope walk between the twin towers of the world trade center. it was an amazing feat and the documentary is excellent. i’ve seen it before and i am equally entertained and amazed by it this second time.
the thing that i am struck by this time is the collaborative nature of one man walking across a wire between the two towers. while philippe was the one that received all the credit and glory for the task there is no way that he could have accomplished the walk without a large number of people helping him. petit was taking the largest risk (he was the one facing the largest chance of death) but everyone involved was placing themselves in harm’s way in order for petit to accomplish his goal.
i believe that the majority of the things we believe we have done on our own have in fact been done with lots of people helping us.