In 1980, Leonard Bernstein gave the commencement speech at Johns Hopkins. He was in the twilight of his career and life. But the composer and teacher still had lessons to deliver:

Every artist copes with reality by means of his fantasy. Fantasy, better known as imagination, is his greatest treasure, his basic equipment for life. And since his work is his life, his fantasy is constantly in play. He dreams life…

But doesn’t everyone fantasize?

Perhaps what distinguishes artists from regular folks is that for whatever reasons, their imaginative drive is less inhibited; they have retained in adulthood more of that five-year-old’s fantasy than others have. This is not to say that an artist is the childlike madman the old romantic traditions have made him out to be; he is usually capable of brushing his teeth, keeping track of his love life, or counting his change in a taxicab. When I speak of his fantasy I am not suggesting a constant state of abstraction, but rather the continuous imaginative powers that inform his creative acts as well as his reactions to the world around him. And out of that creativity and those imaginative reactions to the world around him. And out of that creativity and those imaginative reactions come not idle dreams, but truths…

Hang on to your sense of the fantastic. Use it to create art of the real.