Kryptonite and Khwan: The Quiet Strength in Knowing Thyself

Kryptonite and Khwan: The Quiet Strength in Knowing Thyself

by Kateb

They say the real strength of a man is in knowing his limitations. At first glance, that might sound like defeat. Like saying the river is strong because it avoids the rocks. But in truth, the river is mighty because it knows how to flow around them. It knows how to dance with resistance without losing its direction. Real strength is not the thunder that shakes the mountains; it is the stillness that holds the mountain together.

Strength doesn’t come from trying to master everything. It doesn’t live in the chest of a man who pretends to have all the answers. No, real strength comes when a man can look himself in the mirror and say, “I am not everything but what I am, I honor.”

It begins with self-awareness. That deep and raw understanding of your abilities, your triggers, your patterns, and your temptations. It's the ability to sit quietly and know the full range of who you are without flinching. It's recognizing your gifts without becoming arrogant, and your flaws without becoming ashamed.

I’ve come to know this intimately. One of my greatest strengths is my ability to learn fast lightning fast. I don’t say that to boast. It's simply how I was made. I absorb information and concepts like a sponge in monsoon season. What takes others months, I can often grasp in days.

But this same strength can be my kryptonite. My thoughts race ahead of my reality. My mind gallops while my environment trots. And when the world around me cannot keep pace with what’s moving inside me, I begin to feel confined. Restless. Anxious. Like a lion pacing inside a bamboo cage.

For a while, I tried to suppress that pace, force myself to slow down, to match the rhythm of people who didn’t live the way I felt led to live. But the more I tried to shrink myself, the more distorted I became. I was trying to fit into something I was never designed to wear. Like stuffing the wind into a glass jar. I had to stop resisting the calling. Stop arguing with the pace of my soul. My reality was no longer reflecting who I was on the inside a writer, a messenger, a soul given a sacred mission. A divine whisper handed me a pen, and my job was never to impress. My job was to deliver what was poured into me.

I didn’t ask for this task. I didn’t go looking for a calling. It found me. I’m no more special than anyone else I’m just a man who writes. That’s it. But I know what was entrusted to me. And to walk in that calling, I had to get to know my weaknesses, too. I had to shake hands with my temptations.

And let me tell you I’ve dined with them. I’ve sat across from my weaknesses at the table like old companions. And let me tell you something else they are smooth. They smell good. They dress nice. They don’t show up in rags; they show up in elegance. They compliment you. They seduce you. And they will destroy you if you forget who you are.

The Tale of Nai Faang and the Soul Mirror

Let me bring you now into a little village in the lush hills of Northern Thailand, where the air smells of jasmine and grilled banana leaves. The people there tell a story an old one passed down from the elders who sit under banyan trees sipping bitter tea.

Long ago, there was a potter named Nai Faang. He was known across the region, not because his pots were perfect oh no, quite the opposite. Every single pot he made had some flaw: a chip here, a bulge there, a swirl in the wrong place. But people loved his pottery because it felt alive. Each one had character. Like it had a story.

Nai Faang wasn’t famous because of his skill. He was famous because of a mirror a magical one, they say. A กระจกวิเศษ (krajok wiset), which means "sacred mirror." But this mirror didn’t show your face. It showed your soul. And not your polished soul the raw one. The messy one. The version of yourself you hide even from your best friends.

Every morning before sunrise, Nai Faang would sit on his floor, cross-legged, and ask the mirror:

“What strength must I use today? What weakness must I guard against?”

One day, a nobleman came to town. He had heard that Nai Faang’s pottery never cracked in the kiln, and he wanted to know the secret. The nobleman expected a grand workshop, but what he found was a dusty hut, clay-stained mats, and an old man with cracked fingernails and a belly full of laughter.

The nobleman demanded, “What is your secret?”

Nai Faang said, “I speak to my cracks before I speak to the fire.”

He invited the nobleman to look into the mirror. The nobleman, puffed up like a rooster before a fight, laughed. “I am flawless,” he said.

But when he looked, he saw something that stunned him not a monster, but a man exhausted by pretense. A man crushed under the burden of appearing perfect. He turned away, speechless.

From that day on, Nai Faang wasn’t just known for pots. He was known for wisdom. People from nearby villages would come and ask him to help them “look in the mirror” and not the glass one.

That story makes me laugh, because sometimes the mirror tells me things I’d rather not see. Like how impatience still wrestles inside me. Or how I sometimes avoid prayer when I should be running toward it. Or how my mouth can spill truth in ways that slice instead of heal especially when I don’t first ask the Creator to season my words with grace.

That’s the thing about kryptonite. It’s not always a giant boulder falling from the sky. Sometimes, it's your own tongue. Your sarcasm. Your pride. Your unwillingness to admit you don’t know everything. Your ego that convinces you to push forward instead of pause and pray.

Sometimes, your kryptonite looks like your so-called friends the ones who clap for your downfall louder than your success. The ones who hand you poison with a smile. The ones who drain your Khwan ขวัญ, your life-force, your spirit.

In Thai tradition, when someone’s Khwan is weakened, they may experience disorientation, fear, sadness. They perform a ritual called เรียกขวัญ (riak khwan) a calling of the soul back to the body. Because when your Khwan is missing, you’re walking around like a ghost in your own life. You're there but not really there.

We need to call our souls back.

Back from the distractions.

Back from the fake strength that’s just ego in a costume.

Back from the false belief that we must carry everything alone.

And so I ask you, my dear reader:

• Do you know your superpower? That sacred gift that flows when you're in alignment with your purpose?

• Do you know your kryptonite? That sweet-scented trap that always seems to show up dressed in the very thing you crave?

• Do you know your Khwan? That soft, glowing breath of your soul that disappears when you ignore the Creator's whispers?

• Because we cannot walk in real strength unless we know all three.

We must learn to laugh at our flaws, like Nai Faang. We must ask the mirror the right questions. We must sit still long enough to hear the answers.

Strength is not loud.

Strength is quiet like clay, waiting for the hands of the Master.

Strength is knowing when to fight and when to fold your hands in prayer.

Strength is not the absence of fear it’s choosing faith in the presence of it.

It’s walking through the fire, cracked but not consumed.

It’s being the pot that holds water, not because it is perfect but because it knows its imperfections and was formed in the fire anyway.

So know your limits. Respect your rhythms. Love your cracks.

And let the Creator use all of it.

Even your kryptonite.

Especially your kryptonite.