“You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one.”
— John Lennon
Lennon wrote this line in Imagine, the song he recorded in his home studio in 1971. He was asking listeners to picture a world without borders, possessions, or reasons to kill. He knew it sounded naive. That is why he added the second half. He was not claiming to be a prophet. He was saying: if you have ever imagined something better, you are not crazy and you are not alone.
He wrote the most recognized song of the twentieth century in one morning, sitting at a white piano in a mansion he could barely afford. He had just left the biggest band in history and the world told him he was finished. His first solo album sold poorly. Critics called him self-indulgent. He sat down and wrote Imagine anyway. A song so simple that musicians mocked it, and so powerful that it outlived every one of them. If people say your idea is naive, check whether they have ever tried anything themselves.