Stages of a Man’s Life, Part 1

Daniel Levinson's book The Seasons of a Man's Life (1978) distills a prototypical pattern of development over the course of men's lives from interviews with individuals. Mapping that pattern onto Pete's life creates a framework for understanding where he, and all of us, have points of vulnerability on our way towards a stable, happy life.

Pete's work life was incredibly diverse. He started at 18 in restaurants, where he developed a life-long love of cooking, and music, playing in bands and also being roadie. The day work supported the nights and weekends spent practicing, playing in bars, or pursuing his love of rockclimbing. It was an early orientation towards gig work for him, which was largely the structure of his working life.

His original dream for his life was to play music, and the restaurant work helped support that vision and also his Bachelors degree in English from the University of Minnesota. Levinson talks about a "life's dream" being the guiding vision of early adulthood, most particularly for men, and middle adulthood typically involves a changed role in the dream, or a realistic transition to a new, achievable dream. Pete started a shift from a focus on music in his late 20's, when - most likely influenced by a relationship and marriage at that time - he decided to try teaching, while music continued nights and weekends. They were brief interludes, both teaching and his first marriage. With the intermittent nature of work and the quick redirection away from the goal of teaching, Levinson offers an apt description, not only for Pete's working life in his twenties, but a continuing influence through his thirties and beyond: "If a man's early adulthood is dominated by poverty, recurrent unemployment and the lack of a reasonably satisfactory niche in society, his adult development will be undermined." (p. 337)

In his early thirties, Pete was deeply involved in a band with a close friend, a writer/producer. Three albums emerged from the band Fauna. Levinson identified a developmental threshold for men in their early 30's, in which a man reaches a "settling down" phase, during which either the dream develops or it mutates into something that allows for a little more stability in life. At 34, Pete married a second time, and with that two children became part of his daily experience, clearly a "settling down". The dream was also developing -if Fauna had launched into the "big time", Pete's dream may have been a tenable lifestyle. That did not happen. Music is a tough way to earn a living, and Pete was working on a parallel option.

Just before remarriage, Pete transitioned by building on his roadie experience and his construction knowledge to begin work on film sets for commercials. He eventually worked on films shot in Minnesota as a grip (working on the electrical systems). Film was another love story for him through his thirties and forties; he was fascinated with the cinematography that his work facilitated, in a way that made him excited about the work. However, the work required him to travel far from home and live on the road for weeks at a time, typically on someone's couch or, at least once, in a tent pitched in a farm field, with a river nearby for bathing. It was intermittant work, and intermittant opportunity; there may be weeks or months between gigs, and each gig was a new job to apply for and try to land. It was hard physical work, with long hours and constant time pressures, and it took a toll on his body. He would also do small construction work from time to time, with similar requirements.

After he was hit by a car while crossing a road at a rural, outdoor set, concurrent with the end of his second marriage and resulting several months of recuperation, the film work slowed and an avocation, sled dogs, grew into a primary role in his life. The transition likely included a realization that his body would not keep up on set as well anymore. The avocation played a big role in his third marriage and subsequent relocation to are remote area in the Lake Superior region, for more access to snow for dogsledding and skijoring. Work was hard to find in the north-woods, small-town landscapes around the Lake, and he spent some time doing seasonal work in a fire tower, and revisited restaurant work, both meant to be easier physically but still quite hard on his body.

Levinson argues that early patterns in work life influence later ones: "For large numbers of men, the conditions of work in early adulthood [up to age 30] are oppressive, alientating and inimical to development." (p. 338) Pete struggled to work consistently over his adult years, to conform to rules, procedure and authority. Relocation to a remote area, subconsciously or consciously, moved him farther away from bigger employers and institutions, as well as people in general. Levinson wrote that in a transition to middle adulthood in the forties, a man may “[c]ome to terms with the realities of his life, be at peace with it, live with fewer illusions and create one's own sense of stability." (Levinson, p. 291) In part, Pete's sense of stability may have been bolstered in isolation, and with sled dogs where it was not in his work; the life he was trying to create near Lake Superior was his attempt at a dive into middle adulthood.

It is in this new, remote home that Pete's substance use expanded and began to seriously catch up with him. There'd been issues in the past, but now the drinking and erratic behavior increased. A second DUI conviction came with a six-month sentence to county jail. That conviction came with a significant new opportunity.

To be continued.