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Nourishing Ideas To change the way people act, you have to give them time to change the way they think. Otherwise we should not be surprised if people continue to act in the same ways despite the best of intentions. As we explained elsewhere on this site, Philia's work encompasses three interrelated and interconnected strands: formulating, sharing, and applying. Each of these strands informs and augments the others, each requires attention, resources and time, and all are necessary to embed new ways of thinking into societies, structures and systems. In this section we focus on the first of the three and provide a forum for formulating and nourishing ideas. You can read "nourishing" here both as an adjective and as a verb. We think good ideas are nourishing in the way good food is nourishing: they provide the elements we need to sustain us and foster our growth and development. At the same time, our website creates a space in which to nourish ideas and foster their growth and development. It isn't always easy to devote the time we need to nourish ideas in our bottom-line, results-oriented world. The speed of our culture runs counter to reflection (see our section on Taking Time). We expect fast ideas from a limited investment of time and feel pressured to come up with instant responses and quick solutions. But as the wise dialogue participant we quoted above rightly pointed out, we can't change how we act if we don't give ourselves time to change how we think. So we've devoted this large section of the website to thinking: developing the ideas, principles and values that underlie caring citizenship in order to formulate a strong theoretical base for action. We've divided the section into three main parts:
Illustrating these ideas are a wealth of stories that have inspired our thinking, and a selection of books that reflect Philia values, concepts and/or themes. Please join us in exploring these "nourishing ideas" and help us nourish them further by contributing your own thoughts, ideas and stories!
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