The Smile of a Hyena - Wisdom of Life Hidden Behind Laughter

Series: A Walk in Serengeti — adapted from my Korean-language e-Book published in South Korea.

Before dawn in the Serengeti, a strange sound drifts through the darkness.
It almost sounds like laughter.

It is not human laughter, of course.
It is the call of a hyena.

The first time you hear it, the sound feels unsettling.
The second time, a little sad.
By the third time, strangely, it feels almost playful.

Many people mistake the hyena’s call for mockery.
But that sound is not laughter in the human sense.
It is a signal of survival—a language that confirms presence in the dark.
Because of that call, scattered individuals gather again,
and even in the vast Serengeti night, they do not lose one another.

Hyenas are often the last to remain.

They arrive after the lions have left,
guarding what remains and cleaning what is unfinished.
What humans dismiss as greed is, in truth, the engine of the savannah’s cycle.

They leave nothing behind.
At the end of death, they prepare the ground for life to begin again.

The hyena’s “smile” is not lighthearted.
It is the smile of endurance.
Even when the world turns away,
they endure— and begin again, without complaint.

What looks like ridicule is closer to courage.
And that courage becomes the invisible hand
that keeps the plains in balance.

When the sun finally rises, the hyenas scatter.

Where they came from, where they go next—it is hard to tell.
But there is no fear in their steps.

Watching them disappear into the light, I found myself smiling.
They seemed to understand something simple and profound:
how to carry the weight of the world lightly.

When life grows heavy,
the echo of a hyena’s laughter feels like wind across the grass—
a reminder that survival itself can hold humor.

Laughter, after all, is not the opposite of despair.
It is another way of continuing.

“Laughter is the opposite of despair.
It is another force that allows life to go on.”
— Victor Hugo