“When the lion runs, it periodically looks back, not because of fear but because it wants to see the distance covered.”

Dear friends, allow me apologise for not having any post on this blog last month. And, thanks to those who got in touch to ask why. I had a plan that hit some sort of brickwall and that made me take a second look at a lot of things. I had to get back to the drawing board and check things up. Still at the drawing board though, but I really feel that I should share this.

The day was Friday, the 16th of August. The day started with some friends on twitter saying it’s been long they saw me on that platform. I knew they were partially right. I have been scarce almost everywhere. Later that evening as work was winding up something cropped up on my mind, it was a name – TOPE CROWN.

I mean different things to different people and there are different names they call me. The name each person calls me reminds me of who I am to that particular person. I can only think of three people who still consistently call me Tope Crown, they are friends from the past, good friends from the past. Let me introduce you to Tope Crown.

I read a Psychology text sometime. It said children at a certain age tend to play with their names. The book referred to it as a form of rebellion, a form of emancipation. The child wants to break free from the name s/he has been called right from birth, its a kind of self awareness that may lead him/her to a name that s/he can relate more with. It’s at that stage that a person with a native name adopts an English name, another child with an English name dumps it for an African name etc. Looking around me I find the study to be correct. From Obama to the kid next door, you see the application of this theory in real life.

That stage of playing with the idea of a new name for me came around the time that I was thirteen. I was already in JSS 3 in FGC Ikirun. I came up with the name Tope Crown. I would later drop the name for another at the age of twenty by which time I was already in Ife. So, the time that I used the name was a significant period in my life. If I were to look at Tope Crown as an alter ego, he would be a teenage version of me, he would be a happy boy with dreams and fantasies. For one, Tope Crown dreamed a lot. It was Tope Crown that walked through my mind that evening. It is Tope Crown that I sometime imagine that I see and try to look at his face whether he is happy at what I have become, what I have achieved, the decisions I have made etc. I sometime do a check up to see whether the dreams that Tope Crown passed to ‘Seun Alade are still alive.

Now you might want to ask – why is ‘Seun writing this? I once saw a movie, I can’t place the title though. In it, the lead actor tries to single-handedly build and launch a rocket to space. Crazy? NASA also thought so, and so they invited him for an investigation. Standing before the panel, he gave one of the most brilliant speeches I ever saw in a movie. He said “as a child, the world encourages you to dream. The world tells you that you can become whatever it is you want to become. With this assurance you dream big. However, as you grow older the world begins to restrict you and your dreams, the world tells you some dreams are unrealistic. You need to believe like a child that you once were, that there are really no limits to what you can achieve, become or do” (highly paraphrased).

You, my dear friend, may realise that your dreams are getting smaller, you are accepting the limitations that the society sets and calls reality. You need to connect back to the child that you once were for inspiration. For me, the child that had big dreams was Tope Crown, I still connect with him. I love for you to connect with your dreams. That’s why I’m writing this.

Sometimes, life is not just about looking at where we are headed, we also need to take time out and look back and see how far we have come, time to see whether we have left behind some essential things. It’s a little lesson we all can learn from the Lion King.

I am @seunalade