"It's Either Sadness Or Euphoria"

Slowing down to think on my podcast this morning, this Billy Joel track (from 1977's Turnstiles) crept across into my brain.

I love this song like an old friend. For years, Billy would cite the song as one of his favorites.

The lyrics always feel like a calm meditation in search of a less than manic sense of balance.

And, as we "stand upon the ledges of our lives" with that maniac in the White House, I am more and more aware that "our reason coexists with our insanity."

They say that these are not the best of times
But they’re the only times I’ve ever known
And I believe there is a time for meditation
In cathedrals of our own

Now, I have seen that sad surrender in my lover’s eyes
And I can only stand apart and sympathize
For we are always what our situations hand us
It’s either sadness or euphoria

So we’ll argue and we’ll compromise
And realize that nothing’s ever changed
For all our mutual experience,
Our separate conclusions are the same

Now we are forced to recognize our inhumanity
Our reason coexists with our insanity
And though we choose between reality and madness
It’s either sadness or euphoria

How thoughtlessly we dissipate our energies
Perhaps we don’t fulfill each others fantasies
And as we stand upon the ledges of our lives,
With our respective similarities
It’s either sadness or euphoria