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Charles K. Brightbill, a philosopher and long time professor of recreation at the University of Illinois, published a glowing essay about leisure in an era when work-for the purposes of this article, the paying job-was in the eyes of most North Americans the most dignified and valuable activity in which an adult could possibly engage. He wrote in Man and Leisure in 1961 that "I have assumed that most of us measure opportunity in terms of what we want from life, and that given time free from the things we must do to stay alive, we can have a personally satisfying and full existence through recreative living." These words are only marginally less heretical today than in the middle of this century, for work continues to be seen by many Americans and Canadians as the only really meritorious activity they do, without question the most fitting and proper role for humankind. Finding our full existence in leisure (recreation), so brazenly prescribed by Brightbill, has thus come up against the brick wall of stereotype: in this instance the image of work as an eternal good and leisure as its casual, even frivolous, counterpart. In other words, for nearly two centuries in North America, the vast majority of its inhabitants have looked on "leisure"with disapprobation.
Brightbill was right nonetheless: leisure can be satisfying and offer a full existence. What he neglected to say in his book was that he was promoting a kind of leisure that differed substantially from the popular leisure of his day and ours. Using the language of contemporary leisure studies, it would be said today that he was writing about"serious leisure" while ignoring for the most part "casual leisure." First, then, what is this activity he ignored?
Casual and Serious Leisure
I coined the term casual leisure in 1982 to distinguish the popular leisure of the twentieth century. It is immediately, intrinsically rewarding, relatively short-lived pleasurable activity requiring little or no special training to enjoy it. Most people, when they think of leisure, think of the casual variety, calling up such happy visions as conversing with friends, snoozing in the recliner, strolling in the park, and incontestably the most common leisure activity of all, watching television. Unfortunately, as this definition clearly signals, satisfaction...