If we’re honest with ourselves, we know if a relationship isn’t working, if it is abusive or hurtful, or if it has run it’s course. We can ask trusted family and friends for their opinion if we’re confused or unsure.

The phrase “Say what you mean, but don’t say it mean” is all about the balance between honesty and kindness in communication.

Here’s what it means:

• “Say what you mean”:
  Be clear and truthful. Express your real thoughts and feelings. Don’t beat around the bush or pretend to agree when you don’t.
• “But don’t say it mean”:
  Speak with kindness and respect. Even when you’re being honest or giving criticism, there’s no need to be rude, hurtful, or aggressive.

Why it matters:

This phrase promotes healthy communication. It’s a reminder that:

• You can be honest without being harsh.
• Tone and delivery matter just as much as the words.
• Empathy and respect should guide your conversations—even when it’s hard.

Human-Kind. Isn’t that lovely. We have moved away from the patriarchal term mankind – ‘man’ who has not always been ‘kind’, necessarily – toward equality between the sexes and acknowledging gender fluidity. Noah touches on this. If you’re interested in the evolution of humanity and how we are capable of co-operating as a global community, give this book a go. You may experience information overload – but when condensing 2.4 million years into less than 500 pages, Harari goes alright. I’m someone who didn’t pay attention to history at school so I found this book enlightening, empowering and also disheartening at times. Harari writes about the breakthroughs of the Cognitive, Agricultural and Scientific Revolutions. The power of human imagination, math and language has been instrumental in the development of humankind into an apex predator, and the destruction of everything else.

If you’ve ever heard someone mention dopamine and serotonin in the same breath as endorphins and hormones, you’d be forgiven for thinking they’re all basically the same thing. Toss in words like neurotransmitter, neuromodulator, and neuropeptide, and the whole business starts to feel like a vocabulary test you didn’t study for.

The truth is, even scientists use these terms loosely, and there’s a good reason it feels muddled — a lot of these chemicals are genuinely doing multiple jobs at once. Dopamine, for instance, isn’t just one thing; depending on where it’s released and what it binds to, it can behave like a fast-acting signal, a slow-burning mood tuner, or even a hormone.

Neurotransmitter

The broadest functional term. A chemical released by a neuron that signals to another cell (neuron, muscle, or gland) across a synapse.

• Acts fast and locally
• Has a specific receptor on the target cell
• Examples: glutamate, GABA, acetylcholine, dopamine

Neuromodulator

A chemical that doesn’t directly transmit a signal but instead adjusts the sensitivity or behaviour of neurons — tuning the volume rather than carrying a message.

• Acts more slowly and broadly (can affect many neurons at once)
• Often works by modulating how neurotransmitters behave
• Many neurotransmitters also act as neuromodulators depending on context
• Examples: dopamine, serotonin, acetylcholine (yes, the same molecules — context dependent)

Neuropeptide

A structural description — these are neurotransmitters/neuromodulators made of short chains of amino acids (peptides).

• They can act as neurotransmitters OR neuromodulators (or both)
• Generally act slower and longer than small molecule neurotransmitters
• Examples: endorphins, oxytocin, substance P, neuropeptide Y

Hormone

A chemical released into the bloodstream to act on distant target cells throughout the body.

• Your instinct is basically right — they act on receptors, but anywhere in the body the blood reaches, not just at synapses
• The key difference is distance and delivery method (bloodstream vs. synapse)
• Examples: cortisol, insulin, testosterone, adrenaline

The overlap (where it gets messy)

The School

Imagine your brain is a busy school.

Neurotransmitters are students passing notes directly to a specific classmate. One sender, one recipient, one clear message — “meet me at the oval at lunch.” Fast, targeted, and the note stops with that one person.

Neuromodulators are the teacher changing the energy of the entire classroom without addressing anyone in particular — dimming the lights, putting on background music, or simply raising an eyebrow. Nobody receives a direct message, but everyone’s behaviour shifts in response. The whole room recalibrates.

Neuropeptides are notes written on Post-it notes. That Post-it could be passed directly to a classmate (neurotransmitter) or stuck to the whiteboard for everyone to read (neuromodulator). Calling something a neuropeptide just tells you what it’s written on — the small, peptide-based format — not how it gets delivered or who reads it.

Hormones are the notes sent home in a student’s bag for their parents. They don’t operate within the classroom at all — they travel a long distance through a completely different system (the bloodstream), and land somewhere far from where they started, triggering a response in a totally different environment.

Simple summary

• Neuropeptide = what it’s made of (a peptide)
• Neurotransmitter = what it does (transmits a signal across a synapse)
• Neuromodulator = how it acts (tunes/modulates neural activity broadly)
• Hormone = how it travels (via bloodstream to distant targets)