HOW ARE YOU FEELING? TIRED? Happy? Bored? How open are you about your emotional status? As a kid, I was always amazed by the difference in answers to the traditional “How’s it going?” greeting from both my English friends and Irish family. While the Brits would usually reply with something apathetically positive like “Fine, how about you?”, the response from my parents, grandparents or cousins was always more complex. “I can’t complain, I suppose” was a favourite — managing to be both a complaint and a challenge in one. When English people are hungry, they say “I could eat”. When my Grandad wanted lunch, he’d use the Galway saying, “I could eat a child’s arse through a chair.”
The chemical wizardry that makes up our emotions and feelings, and how these internal drivers impact the decisions we make, has fascinated scientists and philosophers from Plato’s chariot of the soul to Darwin’s theories
