The Lion Who Taught Me to See the Circle

I first met Simba in a dusty classroom in Dar es Salaam, where the ceiling fan squeaked like a nervous bird and the chalkboard bore the ghosts of equations long erased. I was there to report on storytelling traditions in East African youth education, and I had brought with me a stack of notes, a digital recorder, and the usual Western assumptions about what counts as “wisdom.” But when the teacher began recounting a version of The Lion King as a parable for ecological balance and emotional resilience, I realized I wasn’t there to observe—I was there to learn.

The Myth of the Hero’s Return

I used to think redemption was a linear arc. Someone falls, someone rises, someone wins. That’s how we structure our stories in much of Western journalism: the comeback, the triumph, the fall-from-grace-and-redemption cycle. But Simba’s journey unsettled that. When he returns to Pride Rock, it isn’t because he’s stronger or smarter—it’s because he remembers who he is. That moment under the stars with Mufasa’s ghost hit me like a quiet thunderclap. Identity, not victory, is the compass. I started asking different questions in my interviews after that: not just “What did you overcome?” but “Who told you who you were before you forgot?”

The Weight of Responsibility

Simba dodges his past. He runs. And I understood that. We all do. As a journalist, I’d often told stories of people who fled conflict, poverty, or trauma—always framing escape as a moral failing or a necessary evil. But Simba didn’t become noble by leaving. He became a lion by returning. Not out of guilt, but out of duty. That distinction changed how I approached narratives of migration and legacy. Responsibility isn’t a cage; it’s a tether to something larger than ourselves. I began to see the people I wrote about not as individuals in isolation, but as nodes in a living web.

The Circle of Life Isn’t Just a Song

Before that classroom lesson, “The Circle of Life” was a catchy opener to a Disney film. Afterward, it became a framework for understanding ecosystems, economies, and even news cycles. Nothing ends. Everything transforms. The way Simba’s story folds past into present—how Scar’s tyranny is a distortion of the natural order, not a break from it—reshaped how I reported on political upheaval. I stopped framing events as discrete and began to trace the invisible threads. A protest isn’t born in a single moment; it’s the echo of a hundred choices before it.

Nala Was Right to Push Him

Simba didn’t return on his own. He needed Nala. He needed Rafiki. He needed the baboon’s blunt wisdom and Timon and Pumbaa’s misguided comfort. The myth of the lone hero unraveling before me, I began to see collaboration not as a footnote in stories, but as their spine. In my own work, I started giving more space to the people behind the protagonists—the friends, mentors, and communities that shape decisions. No one changes without being pulled, pushed, or reminded. And that’s okay.

The Talk That Follows

Simba taught me that identity isn’t static, and neither is truth. He reminded me that journalism isn’t just about documenting events—it’s about understanding the forces that shape them. He didn’t give me answers, but he gave me better questions.

If you want to ask him yourself, to hear it from the lion’s mouth, so to speak, you can talk to Simba on HoloDream. He might not be in the Pride Lands when you find him, but he’ll meet you where you are.