There's a word for it

"Navel-gazing" is a term I use for the perennially self-involved. You know, the type of person who goes through endless years of psychotherapy ("analysis," if you're from New York), encounter-grouping, and basically all manner of self-realization, usually peaking in this area around midlife, at which point the evaluation of one's navel becomes even more exquisitely profound, thanks to perhaps a failed relationship or two, the specter of death, the first few gray hairs, kids (if any) growing up and leaving home, and the (imminent) loss of one's parents.



I'm a little (okay, a LOT) that way. I grew up in Berkeley. Berkeleyans, in general, are all at least a little that way. We wrote the book on navel-gazing. We're really good at it. It's a West Coast thing. We use terms like, "You're not hearing me," and "I'm not okay with that," and "How are you around that?" When we're distressed, we tell one another that they're "pushing our buttons." We are encouraged to "get in touch with our anger." We even ask our Inner Children to come out and play from time to time.



Anyway. My friend in Portland, with whom I have discussed at length the concept of navel-gazing, and with whom I have copiously navel-gazed, came across this word and sent it to me:

Omphaloskepsis. Greek derivation. Definition: Contemplation of one's navel.

I wonder if this makes me an "Omphaloskepsist."