Category: Family and Musings

Purpose

After years of blogging – I have finally realised why my website exists at all: It is to help husbands.

Initially, I thought this blog was about music, or maybe psychology, or maybe self-improvement – but now I realise that it is actually about the situation I found myself in.

6 years ago, I moved in with my wife after our wedding and I felt frankly lost. There had been so much celebration and planning for our married life, but once it actually happened, there were several problems; I had nowhere to call my own space (interior design and marriage negotiations). I had no creative outlet (personality type). I had no sense of self (again, psychology and personality type). I was getting unfit and unhappy fast.

The themes of Design, Negotiation, Psychology and Creativity have all been catalysts for change in my married life. I have decided to take responsibility for my own marriage and my own health. I write and create podcasts centred on these themes.

There will be lots more people who can relate to this. To date this site has only helped myself, but from now on Chimpwithcans has a purpose – to enable a husband’s health in the home. 

Not a lot will change, but I will treat this writing and podcasting as more of a job and you can expect things to become a bit more professional. There will also be Patreon content created and available to Patrons only.

Happy Wednesday Chimps.

If you do nothing

If you do nothing then the ants and rats and algae will come. They start in the shadows, taking the grime and food and dirt that builds up around the edges. But the more they get away with it, the bolder they will get.

Soon your pool is green. Soon your house has an ant trail marching all the way into the kitchen and back to an underground nest. Soon the rats are so emboldened they find a way into your dustbins, your garage, your car.

Atrophy is the enemy. His best friends are algae, ants and rats. Fight back.

RWC final

Today South Africa face England in the rugby World Cup final in Japan. I have British and South African passports but I couldn’t be more biased in my support for the Springboks! My mother is South African and always pushed for us to support the boks growing up. I also live in Cape Town now which makes it easier.

With support for a team inevitably comes active dislike of the opposition…the British rugby commentary on tv is sickeningly biased and the England team’s attitude is strange. They have been known to celebrate drawing a game with a lap of honor….

But that’s just silly competitive juices flowing. These are two very good teams and we’re in for a great match.

Time and birthdays

The sun rises and sets every day and we are free to do what we want in that time period. It is the most democratic system we have – time limits on a day, a week, a month. Everyone will die. These limits apply to everyone.

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Our duty as parents can be defined like this: It is our duty to get her to a point where she can make her own decisions about what to do with the time available in a day.

Til then, we organise stuff for her. I am looking forward to a party later on today with family, friends and cake! Happy birthday my girl. We love you every hour of every day.

An ode to combis

My sister left a car for me in Australia. A classic VW combi van with sliding doors and acres of space. It was very cool. But very old.

She had travelled across the top of Australia in a bigger 4×4, hit a big kangaroo, and traded the wreck in for the combi. The first time i drove it the accelerator pedal fell off in the middle of freeway traffic. I was starting my undergraduate degree at the university of Western Australia, trying to find the place on busy roads in Perth.

I was able to drive it for a few glorious weeks. Combis have so much space you can pile a lot of students in. There’s nothing quite like driving one to the beach for a surf. It made me a few friends and helped to ease me into University life. But then the registration ran out on the car, and it was so old, they wouldn’t renew the road worthy certificate without a load of work done on the car. It made sense to buy another car instead. A boring old Mitsubishi with less space, and an accelerator pedal which worked.

At the tail end of 2019 I find myself wanting to buy another combi. A wife, 3 kids, 2 dogs, and sometimes the goldfish come with me everywhere i go. Soon they will all have friends (except maybe the goldfish).

Ballet

Before this week I had never seen a ballet concert. My four year old daughter had dress rehearsals and performances all week. It was quite a production involving over a hundred girls from 4 yrs up to about 18 yrs….some thoughts:

The sheer joy my girl got from the whole week reminded me of playing in a band. The practicing, the setting up, being backstage, performing….it all gets very addictive and I could identify with it.

The makeup is weird. Part of the show, no doubt, but little girls in makeup sits uneasily in my stomach.

Music plays a huge part in dance and ballet (obviously) and it was clear to me that some girls linked the dancing with the music, while others simply did not make that connection. They were just going through the motions as if it was a sport or a exercise at the gym rather than dancing to the music. My guess is to get any good at the dancing, you need to make that simple connection.

There are some parents out there who take their ballet VERY seriously.

The whole thing was far more fun and interesting than I thought it would be. Exhausting but fun.

Making it interesting

Check out this passage from a book I am reading:

The eardrum is connected to three tiny, loosely hinged bones inside the middle ear. Each bone is delicate and exquisitely shaped. One looks like a hammer and is called by its Latin name, malleus. The next, the incus, looks like an anvil. And the third, the stapes, looks like a stirrup. When the eardrum vibrates, these bones vibrate in tune with its movement and with the movement of the air.

Three bones make all the sound you hear in your head! This sort of thing blows my mind, and yet I gave up biology at 15.

Maybe if my biology teacher had linked it all to music I would have paid attention.

Buildings through different lenses

One way to view a building is through the lens of a developer. Using this lens, a building is a foundation, a frame, and finishes (interior and exterior — windows, doors, penetrations) plus the surface finishes (floors, walls, ceilings, interior doors, rest rooms, mop closets, central plant) and the HVAC, electrical, plumbing, fire protection, controls, elevator systems.

Buildings can also be linked to health and emotion. A house can be a safe space and a home full of joy, or it can be full of anger, the scene of a divorce. Creative spaces can give you a sense of freedom and purpose. Pressurized space characterized by disjunction and poor design can give you a feeling of unease – it may even make you sick.

Depending on what you want to achieve, it helps to have the right lens. For example right now I need to sort out several functional things in our old house such as the garden lawn and the crumbling driveway. Developers lens helps here. I also have to manage a big family’s needs and expectations with my own. Seeing our home as a space for emotional fulfillment, health, and personal development is perhaps the lens to use here.

Footage

I received a video yesterday from my dad. He was fronting a full on soul band. A blues brothers style suit on, he was singing on stage playing his Stratocaster next to my sister who played saxophone.

It made me think that not many families have such cool footage. It reminded me that my family roots are creative, bold, and musical.

It was such a great video to receive and I was so proud of them. Thanks dad.