Yellowstone is an iconic TV show, starring the likes of Kevin Costner, Luke Grimes, Cole Hauser, Wes Bentley and many other up and coming actors and writers like Taylor Sheridan.
Yellowstone is also a modern phenomenon. Shot almost entirely on location in Utah, the show is set in the scenic Yellowstone Dutton Ranch in idyllic cowboy country of Montana.
On the merit of photography alone, the series is a huge success. You add the script, cast, character storylines, acting, and drama, and you get something more than an award winning, audience building movement.
What you get is a Philosophy of Life. A way to decipher Life. Yellowstone is greater than the sum total of its moving parts. It makes one think about one’s life choices. It makes one want to escape from a dreary, nightmarish life where death advances upon one’s soul in a thousand steps. Where the entropy of life bites deep into one’s life essence and tries to end it by a thousand cuts.
Life cannot be readily explicated or understood or even distilled. But this story sure gets close to achieving this insurmountable feat.
To be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce. True solace is finding none, which is to say, it is everywhere.
Gretel Ehrlich – The Solace of Open Spaces
Powerful words, right!
Well, these words are at the core of the show’s drama. And they are also present in every person’s heart.
Life is merely an exercise, perhaps futile, maybe even stupid, in trying to discover solace.
We all try and who knows, it may be that we fail. But solace, true peaceful solace is there to be found.
I spent all evening on the porch staring at mountains, listening to birds… Heart still empty. I take a shower to wash it away like dirt, but you can’t wash lonely off. So, I surrender to it. Best I can do is sleep through the lonely, if I can sleep at all. Then I walk in here and I discover you. Now my heart’s full.
John Dutton explaining how to find solace to his daughter – Yellowstone
Truer words were never spoken.
We come in this life alone. And we go out of it, alone.
The greatest illusion or self-delusion we live by is to think that while we live we ain’t alone.
Life is a lonely journey. True solace is arriving at this conclusion and making peace with it.
And no, I do not agree that any other person can make one whole. For how can two souls become one whole if one can die and the other survive. Where is the whole then? It is illogical.
No, we are born alone. We live alone. We die alone. We can be surrounded by people, light, noise, and lively chatter. That matters not.
We are alone. And being alone is the only truth you will ever have. You can try to make friends, build a family. And you will think you have succeeded. But in this lies the falsity.
For who are your friends? If tomorrow, your doctor told you needed a kidney ASAP, and you called your friends, would they give it to you?!
No, they will not.
Your mama and papa, maybe.
But your pals, no.
Make no mistake, when you are well, and in health, and in funds, they will be at your beck and call, eat your bread, and drink your wine. But when things are tough, really tough, you will be alone.
As for your family, you may think they love you, tolerate you, put up with you because of your wonderful human qualities. Hahahahhaha! Nothing further from the truth!
You lose your job, the use of your hands, your legs, your mobility, your speech, your bodily functions, and then you shall see who your spouse and children truly are!
As the saying goes, men love women well endowed by mother nature with charms, and women pretend they fall in love with men because of their souls.
Bull fucking shit, ladies and gentlemen, bull fucking shit!
As if women naturally fall for cheap, broke bastards, shorter than midgets, uglier than monkeys, and with small reproductive appendages to boot.
In Life everything is transactional. And people who believe otherwise are deluded, exhibit poor judgment and stopped thinking things through the first time Life showed them to be fools.
I am a realist. And because of that, Life’s hard lessons proved to me that solace can be found in Truth. And truth is we are alone from alpha to omega. The sooner we accept this, the faster we stop daydreaming about a better explanation for it all.
Götterdämmerung 