#AssistiveTechBuddies or AI's and the Signal to Noise Ratio Issue

ATBs feel more natural to engage with!

ATBs or Assistive Tech Buddies as I prefer to call what many of the tools that are out there for organisations & individuals to use today, have a much more natural feeling to engaging with them.

But it isn’t always the case.

There are still remnants of the lessor tooling, the supposed AI Agents in development or use that is nothing more complex than the chatbots that we have had available to us for longer than I like to think about. Especially as chatbots are semi-modelled around Text Driven Role Playing Games - wikipedia which only allow explicitly defined paths and therefore are useless for many that need to get something done that the tool can’t help with.

That said chatbots are still highly enjoyable to build and work with. Examples of these are those for messaging tooling like Slack, Teams, Discord, WhatsApp, Telegram etc etc.

It is also really nice when you can find a framework that works across these & other platforms with ease. In the PowerShell world we have PoshBot for that.

I feel this is where MCP Servers (Model Context Protocol Servers) are meant to be heading, but with security concerns still being huge here. Unless I have misunderstood them.

This is why I feel a badly designed tool no matter what you decide to call them to me will stay in the Agent grouping where they are confined to staying 1 or more levels below those that are enjoyable to work with that I have chosen to give them Buddy status as they are the ones I wanna have join me on my journeys.

The Differences

Also it’s Important here to distinguish further between the the two and why these terms are important.

Agent tooling

• You likely want an agent to just go and do something for you & be done with it, not caring much about how it did it
  • This may bring in a whole list of tools to do that task without telling you what it used.
• You trust in it to complete the task/s you set it.
• You don’t need to be able to easily diagnose or audit what/why it did what it did.
• You don’t need to interrogate the datapoints of the journey between you asking for x and hopefully actually getting what you wanted.
• You don’t mind it using a static dataset that cannot be updated.
• You don’t mind being kept within its pre-determined set of rules and actions.
• You may not mind this being an online only interaction.

Buddy

• You likely want to understand how the thing you want done, can be done just as much as needing it done.
• You want it to provide back to you a way you can review and replay the steps it took, in case you need to do so in future, there or elsewhere, or train others in how to do this in future.
• These steps may require changes when new functionality is added, or existing functionality is deprecated & you may want to trial it in 1 code base and re-use across multiple
• You may need to audit the paths taken due to contractual or regulatory reasons, which may require you rerunning with a different set of available data that you have ability to edit.
  • Examples are cross international regions based on current live and future draft legislations
• You may need to add additional complementary data from your own sources
• You may need to run this offline in disconnected environments.

As you can tell ATB’s are much more flexible, and less black box than AI Agents are, but as time moves on we will see more of the tools that seem grouped as AI Agents moving to being more like the Assistive Tech Buddies that they are.

This is because ATBs are much better at not invoking the middle finger response as they have inbuilt mechanisms that genuinely allow Personifiable Content Filtering (PCF) that AI Agents just do not. Many are from what I can tell designed not to allow individual level configurations but instead only allow a limited amount of Administrative Configuration. Happy for you to tell me Ryan you are wrong here but somehow I doubt that I am, even if you dislike my terminology here.

This is because we build both differently, with ATB’s built with flexibility in mind from the beginning & for them to be adaptable in how the interactions between you and them are.

This is in contrast to AI Agents which are built with little or no flexibility for individuals to have human conversations, and is much like speaking with brick walls when dealing with them.

These invoke at least a Level 7 Really Annoyed Ryan, especially as these are what are in use in many customer support helplines & are throwing you around the menus & are for me much more of a waste of time, and makes me put that company on the I intend to move away from list. That reminds me that I really should do a post on the different levels of annoydness is.

It was Joyous when many had an easy override, like entering a triple Zero (000) to actually speak to someone, so much so that I am tempted to raise a petition to parliament about it. If you think I should then drop a comment, though annoyingly each petition requires 5 backers before it goes live & If I do make one I’ll update this post with a link to it.

Both of these kinds of tools, with their different have their places, however a well built ATB will decimate the gains of productivity that AI Agents/chatbots/etc currently provide by a significant gain.

That said, with safety in mind, ATBs require a level of conversational flair to be able to use to their true potential, both inside their predefined boundaries as well as when applicable, outside the predetermined boxes of allowed & safe queries.

For more about this read 🔗Seriously, They are Assistive Tech Buddies not AI Agents, so plz call them as such - blog.kilasuit.org🔗 however you also should read this 🔗Your Mental Health and using AI to write or talk about it - mhasl.me🔗 if you are thinking of asking these tools about your Mental Health.

But yeah, again, give me more ATB’s (that to me are fun and joyful to work with - like Microsoft Copilot & others can be) and less of the boring dumpster fire so called AI tooling that orgs are throwing out left right and centre.

Most are genuinely a disaster for effective collaboration and are like engaging with a brickwall, that has the conversational variety skills that very much reminds me of just how fun it can be to sit around slowly drying paint. Boring, predictable and ultimately scared of the up/down/rocky nature of conversational rollercoasters & therefore not for me & shouldn’t be for you either.

FYI this post is a follow up because I’ve seen too many tools over the years that fall under what many may deem to be NPC or Non Playable Characters. This is because of limited configuration to the interactions with these tools, much like many game characters that have a single static & boring interaction & not like those that have seemingly infinite possibilities.

I did get a little side tracked in authoring this post (for mostly research reasons I promise) had some fun with a short conversation that I had with Microsoft Copilot (whilst not signed in) with a little bit of prompt engineering / conversational hackery that spat out some amazing hilarity. I could have done the same with other tools, but I didn’t have the time this time round to do so.

Can ATB’s or AI Agents really ever have enough guardrails that cannot be bypassed? No matter how much we may think “we can in future” there will always be a variation that allows this to happen. Mostly as this already happens today.

Unfortunately Laws like UK’s Online Safety Act or any other digital or AI regulations are too late and doomed for failure & rejection. They are mostly going to be utterly unenforceable, and not only laughed at like lots of credit agreements have been in the past & various other “safety minded” laws and regulations, they will in time be revoked or replaced with something actually workable or may just end up being yet something else that is ignored by a larger % of the global population than many would think.

There is only so much harm reduction i.e. bubble wrapping that you can attempt before you end up creating a more angry and less emotionally flexible & mature society that needs multiple types and depths of counselling and therapy and causes a significant up-tick in ever more violent (verbal/written/physical) clashes within local/national/international societies.

Can this be solved? I think so.

No scratch that, I Know so.

Because our future as a species depends on it.

However the path to doing so is not a simple journey, but can, and must & therefore, will, happen.

The Signal to Noise Ratio Problem

Yeah that got a bit doom & gloomy but lets crack on shall we!

If you aren’t aware of the Signal to Noise Ratio, it is simply put as The feeling of being in a state of constantly drowning, and failing to find the air to breathe. This is something I’ve touched on in the past, albeit via other variations, including my own via 🔗An Intro to the #SwimmingPoolAnalogy - Going for a swim in the Pool of Mental Health - mhasl.me🔗 which was a part of 🔗Mental Health: It’s Time to Talk - Ignite 2019 Presentation🔗 if you want something to watch instead of read.

Note, at some point in the future the “It’s Time to Talk” presentation will be updated with v2 one however I hope in the future to present this again and again as it’s one of my favourite presentations to deliver.

I previously wrote this 🔗Finding the Balance: Technology & Mental Health - mhasl.me - Mental Health Affects Someone Like Me🔗 and whilst that was about notification hell & the ensuing interaction fatigue that comes with almost every single possible thing sending notifications for everything & some being really bad actors and not having great grouping or querying functionality, with social media platforms & their apps being the worst.

I genuinely think, after having enough use of these platforms that User Experience & User Interface Designers in many of these platforms either don’t use the products, aren’t suitably skilled, are being held back from creating pleasurable, enjoyable interfaces or in the most likely case as all of the scientific data points that way, to be far too heavy on the pushing of notifications to keep you engaged to them.

Some are really bad & have no ability to control or filter them, or worse the platform picking and choosing them just not sending them at all.

Twitter (no one can make me call Musk’s platform X) FaceBook, Instagram are the worst for this. Others Like Mastodon, Youtube, Bluesky and many others are falling into the same traps as they are being built either by the same people or are following the same 💩 design principles.

This one issue alone is where S2N / S:N or however you wanna write it is about messages drowning because they have suffered over dilution.

Think of it this way.

You have a way of organising the content in your fridge freezer filing cabinet email accounts films books files and everything else.

However, lacking organisation can overwhelm with notification hell this is the S2N s:N n>S taking over. This is also true if you have a Messy Desk or cluttered kitchen etc etc.

Solving this, but properly!

I wanna say Turn off anything & everything that is no longer of use to you and push back where things spit out too much. Mute/hide them from you & where appropriate for others too especially if others can unhide them if they want.

Unfortunately though this isn’t always possible & that often means leaving communities & platforms because they impose noise creating 💩 that spews out too much Noise for the Signal that whilst may intend on bringing useful things to your attention, it drowns things out with pre-canned wide ranging things that whilst may have some use, often distracts & slows people down in getting things done.

This is why lots of people (myself included) have a liking to work from home, & on our own devices, where we have full control of many of the things that can infuriate us & others. We have become rather good at it, however I do miss the small office vibes, the open plan floor for a good 200 people & oddly enough running either the chicken side or the regular grill on a continuous on a Saturday afternoon when McDonalds served their food at a higher quality and quicker than most do today.

However, remember that goodbye’s from platforms and communities etc doesn’t always need to be a complete goodbye, but a goodbye for now as sometimes we need that step back, much like snooker & pool players often do before taking their next shot.

If you’ve been following me for a while you will have probably noticed my love for snooker & pool & I will be joining the Uni Social Group so that I can start playing more. I’m also hoping to meet some of my Idols when the World Seniors Snooker (WSS) comes to Derby this December. I’m yet to get my tickets but it’s on my I'm getting xyz this month list, unless a friend gets em for me that is.

As a Maintainer, getting an I'm done with this for now - here is why message is actionable & most often comes with all the right intent.

Especially if the pleasure to pain balance is outta whack whether because of easily controllable or improvable things or not.

I’ve had to send plenty in my time, and recently too due to going to uni, which is still a surreal thing to me. I have yet to actually sit in a lecture & unfortunately missed one today, and my financing is still up in the air, whilst also not having everything that I’d need to hit the ground running. Joys of needing separated devices for different aspects of life and all of them needing a refresh. I also highly doubt I would pass any credit checks atm which again further impacts things. Yay to playing life, like Gears Of War on Insane mode (Oh how I miss gaming)

However, many instead opt for the Silent Goodbye which whilst is the quickest way, it has far too many flaws to be useful either in Software Development, or building highly capable teams that not only work well together, but enjoy it on every possible level.

• Giving silence, doesn’t allow you to engage in & direct or attain any potential bi-directional growth.
  • This can be useful in small chunks. Really small chunks.
• Staying silent doesn’t allow you to help attempt to direct any growth.
  • Sometimes this is of use to an individual or organisation but usually ends up being more detrimental overall to all parties involved.
• Getting silence doesn’t allow for the ability nor chance to understand a view, and from that view enable adaptation and evolution as easily, as getting anything at all back does.
  • This is where frustration can happen. Especially for those that
• Breaking the Silence. Can be hard & emotional.
  • It’s often draining and time consuming.
  • But is incredibly therapeutic for all involved, when done right that is.
  • Due to the release of built up tensions that come with bottling things up.
  • Read more on 🔗The Power of Swearing - mhasl.me🔗 about why this helps, but don’t do this unless your organisation/group explicitly allows & keep it to a minimum if you do! This is super important and is all about respecting everyone’s individual and collective boundaries.
  • Especially when any attempts at breaking a silence is done from the heart but in a rational way.

The above which I call The GsGb of silence & is important to understand, practice & importantly defend yourself from getting too much of the wrong types of silence at the wrong times in your life. But I’m one of these people that enjoys not only the act of breaking a silence, especially with Music, but the lead up to doing so, especially if I’m not having to sit back in active observer mode.

I just may not choose your kind of music or use the words you’d use. Much like I’d highly doubt you would so with the ones that I’d pick, unless of course you know me well enough that is.

Which is the hardest apart of finding those that we can trust to deliver hard to hear messages in a way that leads to real proper action, and not just a soundbite for clicks and likes.

This is why my writing is Authentic and legit, and not just an output by one of our many ATBs, or whatever you (are wrongly in my opinion) calling them.

Unless you & the teams you work with can regularly perform a multi-axis, multi-positional 360 degree reviews, without external input, which is hard/nearly impossible for most without enough time or the tooling to do so. This is why we have consultants, counsellors and therapists, as well as all our artists and architects to help guide us on our ways.

I’m lucky I built my knowledge up of various kinds of tooling & helpers over the years & may this long continue too.

Relationships, professional, friends, family or every other kind, often fail or are more challenging than they need to be because of a lack of well responded bi-directional communications, that are done at the right level, but not to the right level.

Remember no matter where we are, what we do, the language we speak, or how much we have in the bank, to the universe, we are all equal.

By that I mean that we are all made of stardust & are travelling on a flying rock that we call Earth.

It doesn’t really matter if we add layers of separation like organisation charts for who interacts with who the most frequently, there’s usually no harm done (often significant good instead) in what some can feel as attempts of jumping over/across/on them. Especially if you include them, or at least keep them updated.

This is one of the reasons why many, like I do, will request where possible to be kept in the loop as opposed to out of it when it comes to the things that we feel of importance to us, even if there become reasons where time apart is necessary.

Even if not expressed, there likely will be a bi-directional understanding that we can and likely shall meet again sometime down the line.

I am Always Hopeful that in these instances where we have gone separate ways that the next time our paths cross, that it can go back to like it used to, when we laughed or cried or danced or camped or gamed or cooked or travelled or coded together, but Its also ok if we don’t too, even if that does sadden me a little as sometimes we must part ways with others, even when we don’t really want to.

The Internal Battle of Emotion vs Rationality

However, comes the battle that many struggle with & this is why you’ll find people that decide to go dead silent.

Yet if you can find the words or actions to express yourself whether that be via voice, written or artist flair, and release that built up tension, everyone benefits. In the immediate circles as well as those more distant too.

Though I understand completely that sometimes it’s hard to find the words. This is why not only do I find that I am able to find them most of the time for myself, but also I am when called upon for others too, either accidentally or by chance.

But its also important to do so in a way that isn’t done just to release level 11 Hulk Smash mode even if that gets the full point across. This is the Brutal honesty level, and that many can’t hack or handle. There are many further levels beyond that one, however they become ever more violent and as such we should refrain from their use at all times.

People are much more receptive of Level 5 annoyed than they are of Level 10 pissed of & especially if you don’t mince your words in the process. This is important to understand the differing levels and effectiveness of delivery of a message at each of those levels, especially when dealing with different social structures, especially across regions, across business & across kinds of understanding too.

That said if you are too calm or chilled in the expression, many will gloss over you and ignore you completely, or fall asleep in the process.

However, that is just a peek into one of many different sets of sliding scales that can be used in conveying points across. If you’d like to see more of these - let me know. Though I’m likely gonna take silence as yes, even if you wanna yell no no no no no no no no no nope nope, why......... Ryan why........ 🤦🏻‍♂️

Solving this properly involves real people talking regularly, using a variety of levels in their way of expressing themselves and not leaving things to a bunch of tools that interact with each other for us.

The fallacy of “Truths & Lies can hurt, apologies fall on deaf ears”

You may think why's this matter in this sorta post. Well let me explain.

Most of us get told at a young age, that it’s not good to lie. There’s the phrase that as I’ve gotten older I’ve become more frustrated with, that’s it's just a little white lie which is often better expressed as being a mistruth and is one of many forms of tactical deception that we often see in plainsight & are exposed to so much that people that can do, & either choose to or are forced to do this, perhaps for staying a part of a community, like a job, then they often do so not just as protection for themselves but the oncoming ripple effect that will come from it.

Politicians like Boris Johnson, comical as he was, spoke them so frequently, as many tend to do so, partly to keep others including us in the general public on their toes, but also sometimes because the full extent of the truth is hard to express, let alone in a way that others will take on board.

But when you reframe an outright lie, as nothing but the truth, that’s when you loose any benefit of the doubt. Unless you can recover through an explanation at a later time.

That starts with a much needed apology.

Giving/getting an apology, especially one from the heart, worded & expressed in such a way to show the deepness of the emotional depth & understanding of any actions or mistakes made that induced pain, whether short or long term.

Some people refuse to give or take written/verbal apologies, whether or not when done face to face. Often because their temper gets invoked just at the thought of it. That is something that requires time to work on.

Others, however, can & will do, because they’ve been more able to not look past whatever it was that needed one, but because they can decipher the difference between one that is delivered from the heart & The Blood, Sweat & Tears that went into it.

Accepting an apology, isn’t excusing the past & what led to one being needed. It is saying that you now understand the background to how it happened & why one was needed.

Refusing an apology, especially if you asked for one, is a childish move.

Denying one being made, or has been made, or worse, denying knowing about a need for one, or who should give one, isn’t great to see, whether from elected representatives or from tech leaders or friends and family either.

It’s much more hurtful when its from those close to you. Perhaps due to a misunderstanding or lapse of suitable communication.

Yes I must Apologise, as must you too.

There are a good number of people, who I have an apology to give to, I just hope I can get the chance to give it properly.

Firstly to myself, because I’ve been hard on myself for a long time now, in ways many may not be able to comprehend. However, that soon will be a distant memory once I get settled into Uni life. But this first month is going to be difficult, really difficult because student finance is a hella pain and slow and Universal Credit aren’t being helpful.

To those of you that I want & need to give an apology to I hope one day to be able to give it to you in person, if you’ll let me that is.

Though knowing when to & how to apologise is always a challenge, especially more so to those that decide they may never wanna hear one. That and sometimes we all may need a gental nudge from others to either give/accept them.

Something that we try and assume good intent when/if one comes to us.

The Importance of the Personal Touch!

ATBs (like us humans) have the ability to adapt on the spot, whereas some AI Agents/Chatbots really weren’t built for this and is why I lump them together.

Bu ah yes. This is why whilst we can build pre-canned responses that AI Agents & prior generations used to before hand, I know that most can identify these and dislike having them thrown at them. There is a time and a place for static, and predictable outcomes. ATB’s are purposely meant to have a flair of unpredictability. Much like you/your friends, whether sober/inebriated/healthy/ill.

This flair, makes them much more human(like) & more easily enjoyable to interact with.

Lacking this often makes collaboration/complaining harder and dehumanizes everyone involved.

This is why I am disgusted at seeing AI replacing people as opposed to complementing their skills if the individual sees it worth while to use it or not, because adoption of tooling is dependant on whether or not it brings value.

For Collaboration, which requires a significant amount of complaining across various levels, it becomes less fun, and in the longer term less sustainable, maintainable and less enticing for those skilled to stay as well as those that could be skilled and enjoy these sectors. It also needs the Right implementation plan, as opposed to the throw at the wall & see what sticks plan most Software Adoption Plans have looked like in the past.

For Service Providers,

Warning - if you or your organisation are building AI Agent or Chatbots that do not have override functionality that allows invoking the talk to / notify a human right f*****g now process then you are not only irritating and deserve to go out of business, you won’t in future get help/custom from me. Countless others will also in future vote with our feet & rally the troops to join us in leaving you with our carefully chosen words.

Honestly, this isn’t even that hard to implement anymore. Lazy & cheap not to do so & as said before I think we should at least legistate for the Invoke speaking to a Human action, that, like we did for manual reconsiderations of things like credit applications & in my recent case University or in the past Job Applications.

Building up Trust, again..?

With this comes the need to trust, or give opportunities to those that potentially need to regain lost trust in the future. Whether that be from an individual or organisation that messed up.

We have rehabilitation programs, for a reason. You mess up, I mess up, we all mess up. Employers are crying and screaming about how hard it is to hire whilst most of those out of work are slowly dying because employers are saying not at my table to many are also do

However.

I don’t know about you but I have more trust in humans that when they come together and actually when discuss things together, in the same physical location, with less distractions than working remotely, so that they can properly listen to others tend to get the best results with the quickest turn around.

This is not to say that I don’t trust others to work separately and remotely, far from it. I just find more work, gets done, quicker & often more fun too this way.

Correct levels and types of interruptions are easier in a collaborative physical environment.

Especially as a I'm getting a cuppa, anyone want one is a great way to help your co-workers stay focused & not have to walk away from task in hand.

That said this requires individuals to more often than not, spend their earnings and waste significant time too in commutes. Further reducing their actual disposable spendable income, when a well designed business can & should be able to determine them as justifiable business costs.

Companies are yet to find the optimal way of doing this that is respective of individuals and their external to work lives.

• Daily commutes are a no-no for many now.
• 3/5 depends on the job & team dynamics
• 3 days a month, that’s more than doable I think

This is something that I am feeling hugely with my requirement to travel from one side of this small city to another to attend Uni campus, wasting either time or/and money to do so. Read more in 🔗Off to Uni I GO! - blog.kilasuit.org🔗 if you want.

But that’s 1 price to pay for collaboration, however the costs (financial and wasted efficiency) of publicly accessible, privately managed public services, are terrible.

However, these are important to get the balance correct. That is why in person, with real people that using a collaborative ATB or multiple of them vs AI Agents will get more done & will enjoy doing so more.

This is compounded by international spread communities & whilst some of these communities are great at self-funding & self-organising things, others need a little more help & openness to provide opportunities to involve others in the organisation and management of them. Whilst, Importantly not kicking those passionate about those communities from the table & onto the street & into the gutter.

What’s this to do with tables..?

I’m not saying this is a consistent thing, however it is a thing where too many shout not at my table instead of remembering the table is actually infinite in length and width, whilst having plenty of room for them to sit far enough away.

That said, round & square tables, versus the long rectangular tables, make for a more inclusive conversation & is why you see these in lots of restaurants.

Hexagonal, Octagonal, etc are also very good as they are designed to be inclusive.

Triangular ones, not so much so, on their own, but if you have multiple of them, then they do work well.

What about the adoption of the tooling?

Being well versed in software adoptions & where they go wrong, is both met with 🤦🏻‍♂️ & 🙄 as the root cause of failure, is bad messaging.

Right now the messaging about AI AI AI AI AI AI AI AI AI AI is drowning out the more interesting changes happening because of the correct use of existing tooling, like project planning systems, way before you bring AI in to the picture.

My ever changing future view

Quite frankly the idea of travelling into the future using the prior mentioned services, whether transport or software tooling that slows down in rush hours is still not that appealing to me, though I’ve been trying recently to change this. I don’t blame others in having this view either.

This for me is down to my health. Which includes my desire to avoid cancellations delays and more, like actually being in pain due to the cold or services being DDOS’d or worse internet cuts.

This is compounded by having highly complex & higher than average needs whilst being more than capable to be left alone, and be more than just barely functional.

But also I know I need help sometimes that may include

• a boot up the butt
  • a friendly punch on the arm
  • a knock on the door & actually pulling me outside my safety zone
• a message worded with the sound for what a gay horse eats (IYKYK)
  • this goes against the whole say more than hi ethos of nohello.com that many follow but I don’t mind receiving them
  • Especially if followed up with wys or it's been too long etc
• sending me new music
  • heavy or chilled
• throwing new shows (or shoes) my way

Especially if those others have gone off and done things themselves than being pushed to accept practices pushed on them by overly opinionated tooling suggestions that get enforced on them.

Cos that bring out the Rage Against the Machine & well you should know that leads to a more volatile environment.

This is why many will still go with the physical buy/build instead of virtual rent/lease, that and you don’t have to deal with 3 Million and 1 different TC’s - when your own is all that is really needed (ok 2 including D&B’s TC that is)

That said I’ve always said the right balance of Hybrid is the often the best.

Why this matters in Software Development!

Honestly, burnout in this industry is high. Perhaps because we interact across so many other industries & many don’t tend to take time off properly.

Also organisations (whether corporate or community) in this industry sometimes & unfortunately when it happens don’t take into consideration just how important it is for wider diverse viewpoints from the people that are either a long standing part of those communities or new members of it.

This is often due to the unfortunate curses of bias & sometimes just a wrong interaction at the wrong time & place, sometimes done in ways that may frustrate, annoy, or upset.

Sometimes this is unavoidable but do try not to enact bridge burning with a gigantic middle finger. That tends to be met with 1 or many bats, whether they be physical or metaphorical.

Burnt bridges can be rebuilt, like trust, and can be stronger than they were before, if given enough time & effort.

Sometimes you have to Be Cruel to be Kind

I much prefer not having to resort to this & rather private/small grouping vs doing so publicly. I expect, as many others do too, when we do so, that some comments will come back to us one way or another.

Remember that those that care, talk or eventually will write or scream and shout - like Britney & will-i-am.

Those that don’t, tend to keep quiet & often eventually walk away.

Unless they are observing, blissfully unaware or purposely choosing that their interaction either isn’t required then, or even.

Sometimes though those that keep quiet, just don’t know what to say. So bear that in mind.

Or because of the Signal:Noise ratio & how busy they are may forget to respond.

However, sometimes some cruelty is unavoidable. When it is I do try and avoid going too far with my words or actions. But like anyone I know I can make mistakes with this. This often (for me and everyone else) is due to Emotional vs Rational led outbursts.

That said, being forcefully ejected or purposely ejecting yourself from these community gatherings, can be the only way of saying/being told that your cries are all in vain (Cries are all in Vain - Bullet for My Valentine) and yes the stories that they told you or your told yourself still run through your veins and sometimes you need to re-tell yourself, that those stories weren’t meant to permanently hurt or offend you, especially if they come from those close to you or those that are actively trying to help you, not hurt you.

Even if they may be short term painful.

Even if it actually hurts you more than you can let on, because you know it’s not ideal to do so but sometimes is necessary.

But we grow most from the short term pains, especially when we can quickly recover from them & not have them unnecessarily dragged out, by others because they aren’t listening to you.

This is why when people tend to hit the ejection button shouting like Craig David I'm walking away from the troubles in my life it’s because it’s become too cruel and holds some, usually accidental, vibe of overbearing negative toxicity, without their being enough counter-balancing positive toxicity that actually keeps the interactions in these communities worthwhile for all involved.

The use of Music & Lyrics in this post

I am a believer of the Power of Music (a post that will be on 🔗Mhasl.me - Mental Health Affects Someone Like Me🔗 in the future & I will update the link when it is) that will include the importance of originals & amended/Alternative Tracks especially if they have extended/different lyrics than the original or change the pace/tone to the original release/s.

Music and generally speaking everything that classifiable as The Arts or Sciences is hugely important to life.

Sometimes you need to Turn Off The Light (Nelly Furtardo) before you become Just another star that burned out too quickly (Just another Star - Bullet for My Valentine) even if you cannot see the light behind these eyes (also Just another Star)

Wrapping up

I gave myself 2 hours to write this, not the almost a full day over many days it’s taken.

I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I have writing it around everything else too.

I may not write much here in the near future as I destroy what was my old life & rebuild my new life as a student & like most students I am, what they call absolutely f****** skint mate at least for another few weeks.

Chow4Now and I hope your future is looking as bright and fun filled as mine is and had been behind the scenes for a long while now.