Gosh darnit if I didn't like Nick Offerman even more after reading his book.



I was already a fan because of his excellent and hilarious work playing Ron Swanson on the NBC show "Parks and Recreation." His memoir, which he calls a guide for "delicious living," is a fun, fast read. He talks about growing up on a farm in Illinois, his wise and supportive parents, how he got his start in acting, how he met his (also hilarious) wife, Megan Mullally, and he offers advice on how to have a more fulfillin



Choose your favorite spade and dig a small, deep hole, located deep in the forest or a desolate area of the desert or tundra. Bury your cell phone and then find a hobby. Actually, hobby is not a weighty enough word to represent what I'm trying to get across. Let's use discipline instead. If you engage in a discipline or do something with your hands instead of kill time on your phone device, then you have something to show for your time when you're done. Cook, play music, sew, carve ...



I'm here to tell you that we've been duped on a societal level. My favorite writer, Wendell Berry, writes on this topic with a great eloquence. He posits that we've been sold a bill of goods, claiming that work is bad, that sweating and working, especially if soil or sawdust is involved, are beneath us. Our population, especially the urbanites, has largely forgotten that working at a labor that one loves is actually a privilege. To be on the receiving end of this gift of a life complete with human body, mind, and heart is to be indescribably blessed indeed, but all of our conveniences and comforts and amazing technological advances have made us completely soft and fully pusillanimous! If a person can simply discern what it is that he/she loves to do with an eight-to-ten hour day, then a satisfying workday is easily attained.





About a month into college I was walking across campus and I had to stop and call my dad from a pay phone, and I said, "Dad, I just want to say that everything you've taught me has just landed. I get it all. I'm really sorry I was a bit of a dick to you for the last five or six years. But I just want to say thank you. I'm going to make a good go of this. Everything you and Mom have been quietly instilling into me, despite my resistance — it worked."



Gosh darnit if I didn't like Nick Offerman even more after reading his book.I was already a fan because of his excellent and hilarious work playing Ron Swanson on the NBC show "Parks and Recreation." His memoir, which he calls a guide for "delicious living," is a fun, fast read. He talks about growing up on a farm in Illinois, his wise and supportive parents, how he got his start in acting, how he met his (also hilarious) wife, Megan Mullally, and he offers advice on how to have a more fulfilling life:This is a theme that Offerman returns to several times, and the man has a point. Offerman's own discipline is woodworking — he even has a business selling his crafts (Offerman Woodshop). He said he had always liked building things and working with tools, and he eventually became quite skilled. When he moved to Los Angeles to be an actor, there were several years where he had trouble landing any acting jobs. But fortunately, he had his carpentry skills and was able to earn money that way, and he founded his own woodshop.There is a lot of humor in this book, and Offerman shares some funny stories about his early acting days and some of the tomfoolery he engaged in. There is a particularly amusing story about the time he got arrested while trying to steal some cassette tapes (it was a stupid game he and a friend were playing, to see who could steal the silliest stuff) but the police didn't find it funny and held Offerman as long as they could to scare him. It did scare him, because Offerman was scheduled to be in a play that night, and he made it to the theater just minutes before he was supposed to be onstage. Whew!If you have seen the show "Parks and Recreation," you know that Offerman's character, Ron Swanson, is known for his toughness, his masculinity, and his love of meat and breakfast foods. Ron Swanson doesn't f*ck around — he lives by a code and he says what he means and he means what he says.Offerman is quick to point out that he isRon Swanson in real life, however, he based part of the character on his own father. The sections in which Offerman talks about how much his dad meant to him are moving. I especially liked this story:I enjoyed this memoir, even though some passages got a little too guy-humory for me, and there were a few too many sections about his drinking shenanigans, but overall, I came away liking Offerman as a person because of his moral code. He has some good sections on growing up in the Midwest, on appreciating the land, on respecting religion but not forcing it on people, on supporting local and organic farmers, on not being an asshole, and on personal responsibility. If you like Ron Swanson, you'll probably enjoy Offerman's book.Also recommended for fans of moustaches."I learned early to respect my tools and my machinery, knowing that with the proper lashing-down and utilization of simple machines — the wheel, the lever, the screw, the inclined plane — there was no job of work that could defeat us.""I seem to have been associated with certain trains of machismo in the zeitgeist, at least for this brief, golden moment. I find that fact to be somewhat embarrassing, given my firsthand knowledge of my personal failings and propensity for jackass behavior, but I get it, based on superficially perceived signals of manhood, like a full, thick moustache and the ability to use tools. When people ask me questions relating to my 'manliness,' I like to remind them that I am primarily an artist as an actor, writer and woodworker.""My favorite rule from [an acting teacher] was 'Always maintain the attitude of a student.' When a person thinks they have finished learning, that is when bitterness and disappointment can set in, as that person will wake up every day wondering when someone is going to throw a parade in their honor for being so smart. As human beings, we, by the definition of our very natures, can never be perfect. This means that as long as we are alive and kicking, we can be improving ourselves. No matter our age, if we always have a project to which we can apply ourselves, then we will wake up every day with an objective, something productive to get done. This allows us to go to bed at night in the peaceful knowledge that we have done some good, gained some achievement, however small. Having ears for this lesson has been one of the luckiest pieces of listening I've done, because it has led to my woodworking discipline, one of the greatest joys in my life."