The Quiet Between Candles
I woke up to a red sea of candles and that familiar, sinking feeling in my gut. Before I even reached for my phone, I already knew: Bitcoin was down. Hard. My brain started doing the math, how much that drop meant in dollars, what it did to my weekly DCA, whether I should have sold some at the top. I told myself not to check, but I did anyway. Of course I did.
There it was. -8%. A punch disguised as a number.
I stared at the screen longer than I’d like to admit. My girlfriend rolled over and asked, half-asleep, “Everything okay?” I told her, “Yeah, just checking something.” Lie number one of the day.
That’s the part nobody writes about, the tiny lies you tell yourself when you’re supposed to be the one with conviction. It’s easy to say Bitcoin doesn’t flinch. But I do. Every time. I still feel that pull of uncertainty. It’s quieter now than it used to be, but it’s still there.
For a few minutes, I scrolled through the headlines. Trump’s tariffs. China’s retaliation. Market chaos. Everyone blaming everyone else. None of it had anything to do with the network I actually believe in, yet somehow it managed to hijack my nervous system. My morning wasn’t dictated by my own plan; it was dictated by pixels.
I felt that old voice start whispering: What if this time it’s different? That’s always how it starts. It never shouts; it just creeps in, like fog. It makes you want to act, to do something, anything, just to stop feeling powerless. That’s when you realize how hard conviction really is. It’s not about belief; it’s about restraint.
So I did something different. I put my phone face-down, got up, made coffee, and sat outside. The air was still cool from the night. I watched the steam curl up from my mug and let my thoughts run wild for a while before they ran out of energy. The world didn’t end in those few minutes I didn’t check the price. Bitcoin didn’t stop mining blocks because I stopped staring at it.
The thing about conviction is nobody tells you it’s supposed to be uncomfortable. Everyone talks about patience like it’s some calm state of Zen, but patience is just panic stretched out over time. It’s learning to hold space for fear without letting it drive. It’s watching the same waves that used to knock you over and realizing you can finally stand in them.
I thought about the first time I panicked. 2020. Price crashed, and I sold everything at 2 a.m. I remember the adrenaline, the sweaty hands, the false sense of control. Then the bounce. Then the regret. That was when I realized: if I didn’t learn to master my emotions, the market would do it for me. And the market is a brutal teacher.
Conviction isn’t forged during bull runs. It’s built in the crashes. The quiet ones. The ones where no one’s tweeting “laser eyes” or posting rocket emojis. It’s built in mornings like this one, when doubt seeps through the cracks, and you have to sit with it instead of running from it.
I watched the sunrise creep over the rooftops, the light slowly washing the neighborhood awake. Somewhere in that stillness, the weight in my chest started to loosen. I thought about all the times before when I thought it was over, 2018, 2020, 2022, and how every one of those dips felt final. Each time, I came out the other side not richer, but calmer.
Bitcoin’s still doing what it’s always done, producing blocks, exactly as designed. The tariffs, the news, the noise, all temporary interference on a permanent signal. But I don’t want to just repeat that as a mantra anymore. I want to actually feel what that means. To recognize that I’m part of the system too, a human node processing emotion in real time. The network might run on proof of work, but conviction runs on proof of time.
So I started writing. Not to teach. Not to convince. Just to understand what was really happening inside my head when the number on the screen moved. Because if I don’t document these moments, the small battles between logic and fear, they’ll just repeat, like unconfirmed transactions bouncing around my mind.
Sometimes, when I zoom out far enough, I remember why I’m here at all. Not to get rich quick. Not to win. But because somewhere deep down, this protocol taught me something about myself: that discipline is freedom, that time heals volatility, and that truth doesn’t need to shout.
The more I’ve studied Bitcoin, the more I realize it isn’t just money, it’s a mirror. Every block forces you to confront your relationship with time, risk, and trust. Every dip asks the same question: Do you really understand what you hold? Every cycle, I get a little closer to answering yes.
By the time I finished my coffee, I wasn’t euphoric or even peaceful. I was just steady. A little more anchored than before. Maybe that’s all conviction really is, returning to your center a little faster each time the world tilts.
Later that day, I checked the price again. It was still down. But my pulse didn’t jump this time. I didn’t run to X or Reddit for explanations. I just nodded, smiled faintly, and went back to what I was doing. There’s a strange kind of freedom in that.
Conviction, I’m learning, isn’t a destination. It’s a rhythm. A slow alignment between your mind and your beliefs. You don’t wake up one day completely immune to fear, you just start noticing how it passes through you with less resistance. Like water finding its way around a rock.
The market will recover when it does. Or maybe it won’t, at least not right away. Either way, I’ll still be here, learning to breathe between the candles.
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