Many of man's most significant activities, the processes of creativity, invention, discovery, are ultimately based on a certain detached, playful attitude toward experience. Many of his most vital achievements, the results of these processes, could not occur in the absence of civilized reflection and purposeful daydreaming. Yet the very behavior that is essential to these activities and achievements, the behavior of being leisured, is one of the least understood and seldom analyzed of human experiences. This essay is an attempt to define certain characteristics of leisure, to explore reasons why it is such a neglected topic, and to suggest that the avowed, conscious pursuit of leisure is, especially in the highly organized societies of the modern West, a genuine test of personal courage.