On January 11th, 2016, I started a daily practice of writing a joke meditation of the day called Cracked Pot Meditations. I was still recovering from the treatment of cancer, and I was having very challenging cognitive issues, so I chose just to put something simple and easy to write every day. Posting it to the blog allowed me to have some accountability. Some of those meditations were poorly written and unedited. I have gone back and begun editing these and adding an illustration, starting with the April 27th meditation. I hope you enjoy.
Meditation for July 3rd
Music & Your Brain
We all listen to music, except those who are so boring won’t listen to any music, or will say they listen to ‘all kinds of music’. Different genres of music shape who we are and how we react to the world around us. We, of course, if we have a personality and don’t have to rely on just identity to fit in, listen to different kinds of genres so that we can be very complicated. Still, for this list, it’s about the genre of music you listen to the most, such as four hours or more a week. Anything under that is just dabbling.
When our mind reacts to music, different parts of the brain light up. For instance, when we listen to electronic dance music, our creative side remains dormant, while our social aspects light up brightly.
After several years of study at the David Everett Fisher Cracked Pot Meditations Research Labs in the Southwest Hills of Portland, Oregon, and our sister facility in Providence, RI, these are our results.
Blues: confident, calm, at ease, but close-minded, argumentative, and picky when it comes to socializing. Blues fans dance when things aren’t danceable, love a loud, abrasive guitar solo, and terrible singing. Blues fans are often perceived as traditional, conservative, and narrow-minded, particularly in comparison to more progressive-minded people.
Jazz: extremely creative, introspective, and open-minded. Jazz fans can’t stand ‘normal’ music. Bored easily and always in search of something new. Jazz fans tend to be sticklers for tradition, but rather than be traditionalists or progressives, they want the backbone of tradition just to be destroyed. Jazz fans are annoyed at everything you like and will roll their eyes at anything you say you enjoy. Snobs.
Classical: Old. Usually introverts who prefer a lot of alone time with a cat or thirty. Likes to watch other people without the people knowing they are being watched and constantly flirting with complete insanity. If the classical fan is younger, they will likely use older technologies, such as a landline or a typewriter, instead of a cell phone or computer.
Rap: Angry, passionate from being marginalized or passionate from marginalizing the marginalized. Angry for not having enough or angry for having enough too easily. Either overprivileged or underprivileged. Never a balanced person. Always not happy where they are, who they are with, or who isn’t with them. A lot of white people who listen to rap are from privileged families, and either feel guilty about that, or on the other extreme, don’t know what rap is all about and are downright racist.
Opera: Just so tired. Can’t wait to sleep forever.
Country: See Top 40 Pop
Reggae: Too stoned to know who they really are. Thinks that a nasty dictator from Ethiopia is God. Thinks weed is a gift from God. Doesn’t think about anything else.
Dance: So uncreative, they listen to music that literally listens to itself while you throw your body around to the boom boom noises. Not an intelligent class of folks. Needs social reassurance all the time.
Indie: Never heard of it.
Heavy Metal: Clones. These people are uncreative and use only four set recipes for songs. These people are lazy, dirty, and in a strange, young-person way, traditional, conservative, and against any new or progressive ideas.
Top 40: This allows a person to listen to music and discuss it with others. This is why there is so much press about top 40 music and the personalities that create it, so people hiding their scared, insane minds can appear normal. Usually, country fans fall under this umbrella, but with a slightly more traditionalist view. At the end of the day, there is no difference. Basically, people who don’t want to miss out – hate fantasy, but watch Game of Thrones and Harry Potter because everyone else is.
R&B: Passionate and loving, R&B fans usually listen to music that makes them feel the love they have never felt in real life.
Punk: Too dumb to listen to anything over three minutes. Or don’t have time because of ADD. Even less creative than the metalheads.
Hardcore: White people mad at white people – self-hatred and guilt. A lot like the clones of Heavy Metal, but not into solos. Noodling belongs in pasta. For a music born of rebellion, this genre has probably the most unwritten rules of any of the genres. Your music, your uniform, and your slang need to be high or tight, or you are a poser. This is why it’s for men who are cops, but think they are the cool cop.
Emo: There was this three or four-year period in the early 2000s where the music of the 90s got spit-polished by music industry executives and blended into what is called emo. Now, there is a whole generation of millennials who believe that this music defined them, but now we know why they confuse discomfort with trauma. In 2025, this genre is experiencing a resurgence, and some people are embracing it as their whole persona.
Any Specific Genre that fits inside of a genre, and even the really specific genre that belongs inside of a genre that fits inside of a genre: Help! I’m so fucking special and wants to belong to a tight knit group of people, but I am too scared too so I make myself too different to ever be approachable. Have you ever been to a show and you’re the only one in the crowd?
Polka: Very interested in beer.
Folk: Not interested in anything too complicated. Just wants an easy life. Won’t work hard. Won’t play too hard either. Just wants to chill and hang, dude.