"Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognized in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself," insisted a young Robert Louis Stevenson. Idleness [from the Old English word for "useless," which came to mean "lazy"] may involve lying in bed... but it can also involve a great deal of concentrated effort. That's because idleness is not (unlike slackness), the opposite of "work," but is instead a hard-won mode of existence in which whatever one does is an act of creativity. See: FREE TIME, IDLER, INDOLENT, LEISURELY, USELESSNESS, WAITING FOR GODOT.