October

"(...) untold degrees of suffering, destruction, and death (...) clash with simple as well as complex but nondeliberative homeostatic regulation. Time and again, humans have imprudently concluded they had reached an age of stability and reason, one from which injustice and violence would be forever banned, only to discover that the horrors of gross inequity or war had returned with an even stronger force."

"Education, in the broadest sense of the term, is the obvious way forward. A long-term educational project aimed at creating healthy and socially productive environments needs to give prominence to ethical and civic behaviors and encourage classical moral virtues - honesty, kindness, empathy and compassion, gratitude, modesty. It should also address human values that transcend the management of life's immediate needs." 

Antonio Damasio (2018). The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Cultures.

Photo by Monica Pinheiro CC BY-NC-SA (CC) October 2026.

August

“People you love become part of you – not just metaphorically, but physically. You absorb people into your internal mental world.” When people get separated “the sudden absence represents a major departure from homeostasis. (…) when someone moves away, rejects you, or dies, your brain struggles with its thwarted expectations.” David Eagleman (2020). Livewired: the inside story of the ever-changing brain. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC).

Flourishing

«Homeostasis refers to the fundamental set of operations at the core of life, (...) is the powerful, unthought, unspoken imperative, whose discharge implies, for every living organism, small or large, nothing less than enduring and prevailing. (...) The part (...) that concerns "enduring" (...) produces survival and is taken for granted without any specific reference or reverence whenever the evolution of any organism or species is considered. The part of homeostasis that concerns "prevailing" (...) ensures that life is regulated within a range that is not just compatible with survival but also conductive to flourishing, to a projection of life into the future of an organism or a species.» Antonio Damasio, 2019. The Strange Order of Things. Vintage Books. Image by Monica Pinheiro, license CC BY-NC-SA (CC)