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Navel-Gazing

GNC

King-Sized Canary
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Aug 25, 2001
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Navel-gazing is a term often used for the height of self-indulgence, but was it ever a real practice? Did any gurus or their followers spend time contemplating their belly buttons? Does it actually work as a meditation technique? Anyone here ever tried it?
 
If you tried doing it for any lengthy period, you'd probably do your neck and back some damage.
 
If I recall correctly, navel-gazing is believed to have derived (sometime in the middle of the 20th century) from the earlier phrase "contemplate one's navel", which traces farther back at least as far as the 19th century. This earlier phrase was first used to describe yoga or meditation practices observed in India and / or the Far East, and gradually seeped into colloquial usage.
 
Yeah, the lady who delivered me did a good aesthetic job of making my belly button. I always felt very sorry for those few kids at school who had 'outies' - I wonder if, in adulthood, they still stick out?
 
I didn't realise it had a scientific name, does this make it an "official" (for want of a better word) practice or did some wiseacre come up with the fancy name later? It doesn't sound very Hindu.

You might hurt your neck and damage your posture, right enough, but I'd imagine the most flexible of yogis wouldn't find it much of a task. I'd like to think eventually the navel takes on the same appearance as the Stargate from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
 
gncxx said:
I'd like to think eventually the navel takes on the same appearance as the Stargate from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

'My god it's full of stars'? :shock:
 
Not a Hindu but a dervish practice. The navel is linked with the false self which the mystic wants to gain control over.
 
1,458 Bacteria Species 'New to Science' Found in Our Belly Buttons
JAMES HAMBLIN / DECEMBER 18, 2012

Instead of taking your fingerprint, maybe police should swab our belly buttons with Q-tips. No, that's ridiculous, actually. But the idea illustrates a point made by a group of North Carolina-based researchers in their new Belly Button Biodiversity (BBB) project. Last month, the group published results of their first of many experiments, in which they swabbed 60 belly buttons and identified a total of 2,368 species of bacteria. People's individual profiles were snowflake-ily, bacterially unique.

As the BBB understands it, like exploring the depths of our majestic oceans, there's much to be learned from our belly button hangers-on. National Geographic reported that 1,458 of the species "may be new to science," and some of the bacteria were entirely out of their known context. One person's belly button "harbored a bacterium that had previously been found only in soil from Japan," where he had never been. Another had two types of "extremophile bacteria that typically thrive in ice caps and thermal vents."


Much More:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/...to-science-found-in-our-belly-buttons/266360/
 
:rollingw:
I love science. I love the inquisitiveness of scientists. I love you, Yithian, for posting that!

"The belly button has captured the imagination for centuries," BBB notes . . . Prior to those centuries, belly buttons captured no one's imagination. To be fair, in those days, imaginations were much less amenable to capture. They wandered, wily and free, with a discerning taste, the likes of which our indolent, Internet-weary imaginations of today know nothing."
 
Man collects navel fluff for 26 years

An Australian man earns a Guinness World Record for collecting 22.1g of belly button fluff.

An Australian man has been recognised by the Guinness Book of World Records for collecting 22.1g of his own belly button fluff.

Graham Barker, 45, from Perth, saved the lint over a 26-year-period and keeps the fluff in separate jars according to colour, The Daily Telegraph reports.

The librarian, who began his collection in 1984, said: "One evening, when a little under-occupied, I noticed the lint in my navel and started wondering about it.

"I became curious as to how much of it one person can produce, and decided the only way to find out was to collect it for a while and see."

https://www.digitalspy.com/fun/a284023/man-collects-navel-fluf
f-for-26-years/

maximus otter
 
What kind of clothes does this man wear?
 
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