About Me

• My name is Kwan, a '90s teen cruising along life in my 40s. INFJ loner who scores exceptionally low in Agreeableness, which is one of the major traits in the Big Five Aspects Scale (more about this here). What this means, in short, is that I'm one of those introverts who are not particularly good with associating myself with people. I don't find myself rewarding as much value from interacting with others (than reflecting deeply in my own thoughts and fantasy) or gaining social attention or status (which is one of the best markers to differentiate introverts from extroverts). Hence this weblogging mission of putting myself out there, full-on in the spotlight as part of the individuation journey I've been. Enough of this for now. Moving on with my life timeline.
• Born and raised in a small town northeast of Bangkok, Thailand, in a family with complexes both within and without. I didn't quite like myself as a child, a shy and quiet child with zero to no self-esteem who always asked lots of questions and wondered about life and the point of our existence. I left home for good at the age of 17 to pursue the dream of being an architect (this was in 1996) as a solution to my 12-year-old self's problem of 'wanting to find my Home, so I should go learn how to build a nice home - a place where I belong, finally!)
• The first attempt failed in less than two years (the fun story is told in the Memoir section), then moved to Sydney, Australia in the faith of my intuition and perseverance to hold on to my dream of being an architect.
• Just a little over a year, the IMF crisis hit (think of it as a financial pandemic for the South East Asian countries that spread widely and damaged everything it touched ). My whole world got turned upside down. This was the big invisible foot that kicked me out of my comfort zone and into the arena of the real-life surviving game. I began waiting tables in a Thai restaurant as my first job in order to survive and thrive in architecture school (mind you, this isn't something common in middle-class Thai culture, studying and working part-time. You get the idea, my world was crushed). Then onto some more advanced jobs (and better pays) in several pubs; life was so unbearable, and unpredictable, with no time to be afraid. This was the dark night of a soul kinda time, and this was when I sought professional mental health and started my journey into the spiritual realm in order to look for the answer of what's the point of all this; this being this life.
• In spite of attending one of the world's most demanding schools to graduate, and in the face of continuous financial and spiritual adversity, I graduated from the University of New South Wales in 2004. Dreams do come true.
• Came back home ( or what I thought it was) in 2005, joining the world rat race -- I mean, beginning the career of my lifelong dream as an architect something I had loved and sacrificed the entire first half of my life for only to find that, core beliefs do change as we go through life. Being an architect wasn't the Home I was longing for. Struggling to find purpose in what I was doing, I began walking down of practicing Vipassana meditation while still working in highly stressful jobs, still looking for the Home I longed to find.
• Reaching the pinnacle of my career towards the end of my 30s, at the same time meeting and falling in love with a man who, this time-really, would soon be my husband (a passionate, talented, handsome chef who is five years my junior)
• Two years later, finding myself at the crossroad again, this time on two major highways that would take me to completely different destinations. The first path was leaving all the things I'd worked for in myself and my ENTIRE life, moving to another country, and getting married starting a completely new life being someone else (whom I did not know would be). And the second path was staying where I was and passing the chance of settling down with a potentially meaningful marriage in order to maintain my current identity, my ego. Of course, both ways ahead were unknown to me what might happen and the stake was big, but what the hell, that's what life is all about.
• I entered the first highway, the more unknown, therefore harder and more terrifying only because I trusted my intuition (which always has been accurate in returning me with rewarding results so far) willingly and happily with the motto 'come what may'. I thought I had it pretty well figured out like the time after I came back home from Australia being the Architect.. little did I know that life would throw me another curveball in order to learn and develop ways to find and shine my bright individual star.
• Seven years in the liminal space, which will make up most part of this blog. Trying, finding, losing, beginning, ending, still fumbling my way around the darkest and longest transitional passage, had left one place but not yet reached the next. Lost sense of identity, direction, wandering, and suspending in time and space, holding on only the hope that one day, all of this predicament will make sense and serve me to grow into the person I am born to be. This was the first time I realized that the Home I was, all along, wanting to return to is me - my Self, the one inside who never left my side it was just that I was never conscious enough to see.
• Happily married to a wonderful loving husband who I believe is also one of the Homes I was searching for and finally found, living a meaningful life feeling at Home every day with my true Self.

Now on to the next mission which is this, putting myself out here on the internet ready to be discovered in the hope to share what I've found to be useful and will benefit this journey of finding your own Individual Star. I want to meet people who have been on the same journey or just answered the call to enter the unknown world in search of who you are and who can you become.

“The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” ― Carl Gustav Jung.

We all have our stories in which we play the leading role. Take a good look at it, revisit the pages, and feel proud of the person we’ve become and continue to develop into. Own every bit of it; rise or fall, good or bad, drunk or sober, and embrace both our light and our shadow because, in the end, it’s what made us who we are.

I hope this will contribute to a fun approach to such a complex topic which will allow us to share our glorious journey and what we’ve found to be useful on the way.

More about what is, and why the Individual Star here and I truly hope that we will have so much fun learning and sharing our glory, our joy, and our stories of what we've found along the way. Be Happy.