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Marcelo Baldin

Marcelo Baldin
In MIND

Create. Share. Yield.

A Meaningful Life

Derek Sivers said “Die Empty” (which is actually a book by Todd Henry).^1
Bill Perkins has a book named “Die with Zero”.^2
Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf coined the motto “Preach the gospel, die, and be forgotten,” a pietist way of living for missionaries. ^3

Todd aimed to live fully and create everything possible with his lifetime, being productive. Perkins’ book aims to help people enjoy their earnings rather than let them sit idle as useless cash. However, Nikolaus’ message was to live for a cause that extends beyond one’s life.

What can we achieve if we combine all of them? A meaningful life. Maybe a bit of what Viktor Frankl’s^4 work was about, but it’s really what the Bible has been preaching all along.

Let’s do a mental exercise. For example:

1. Die Empty – Living Fully & Using Your Gifts

These verses encourage pouring out your talents, energy, and life for God’s purposes:

  • 2 Timothy 4:6-7 – “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
  • Ephesians 2:10 – “For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
  • Matthew 25:14-30 (Parable of the Talents) – calls us to invest what’s entrusted to us, not to bury it.
  • John 9:4 – “As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work.”

2. Die with Zero – Enjoying & Sharing God’s Provision

Scripture teaches that blessings are meant to be enjoyed and shared generously, not hoarded:

  • Ecclesiastes 3:12-13 – “I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”
  • 1 Timothy 6:17-18 – “Command those who are rich…to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.”
  • Luke 12:33-34 – “Sell your possessions and give to the poor…For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
  • Proverbs 11:24-25 – “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and one who waters will himself be watered.”

3. Be Forgotten – Living for God’s Glory, Not Our Fame

These verses remind us that the goal is to glorify God, not ourselves:

  • John 3:30 – “He must increase, but I must decrease.”
  • Galatians 6:14 – “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ…”
  • Matthew 6:1-4 – “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them…your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”
  • Psalm 115:1 – “Not to us, Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness.”
  • Isaiah 40:8 – “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.”

What if we blended these three ideas into a single vision for living?

  • Die Empty – exhaust your gifts, leave nothing undone that your heart calls you to create.
  • Die with Zero – savor your resources while you’re alive; don’t hoard what could have been joy or generosity.
  • Be Forgotten – don’t cling to legacy or fame; let your life point to something larger than yourself.

Together, they outline a counter-cultural but liberating path:
Live fully, give fully, and release the need to be remembered.
You pour out your talents and your wealth for meaningful work and for people you love, and you do it in service of something transcendent—whether that’s your faith, humanity, or the next generation.

This aligns with Viktor Frankl’s insight that humans thrive when a purpose beyond pleasure or power guides their lives. It’s also ancient wisdom echoed in Scripture: “Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.”

A possible summary mantra could be:

Create what only you can create.
Share what you have while you can.
Then step aside so the story isn’t about you.

That’s a life well-spent—productive, joyful, and meaningful, all at once.

Marcelo Baldin
In SOUND

Metaphysics

Music as a Metaphysical Experience

Music is a metaphysical experience because sounds interact directly with your brain, independent of other senses, and can transport you to different realities. Therefore, the power of music goes beyond its source; it’s sublime [1][10][11].

Many philosophers contemplated music as the most sublime art form, primarily because of its characteristics. Even Nietzsche said that life without music would be an error.

How Sound Interacts with the Brain

Physical entry:
Air vibrations reach the cochlea in the inner ear, where hair cells convert them into electrical signals. These signals travel via the auditory nerve to the auditory cortex in the temporal lobe [2][10].

Emotion & memory:
The auditory cortex has strong connections to the amygdala (emotion), hippocampus (memory), and nucleus accumbens (reward/dopamine).
This is why a song can trigger goosebumps, nostalgia, or even tears [3][10].

Imagery & mental travel:
Music activates parts of the default-mode network and parietal association areas involved in mental imagery and spatial processing.
Brain-imaging studies show that listening to certain sounds—like ocean waves or cathedral echoes—can create vivid inner scenes, almost as if you’re in another place [4][5].

Altered sense of time and self:
Rhythms entrain brain oscillations; tempo can change the perception of time. Deep engagement (like in trance or flow) can reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex, which can feel as though self-boundaries dissolve [1][11].

It’s fascinating that one can be mentally transported to another state purely through sound.
The Pavlovian-like effect of sonic cues can be used deliberately: when a composer understands how specific sounds trigger emotional reactions, they can shape the listener’s feelings [3][10].

Pop Music and the Hook Economy

The pop-music industry has long experimented with what keeps audiences engaged. While verse-chorus (ABAB) song forms pre-date the 20th century [6], record labels and radio learned that hooks, repetition, and brevity boosted listener retention and sales.

In the streaming era, songs have become shorter and hooks appear earlier to meet the fast-scroll attention economy [7][8][9].
Long-form tracks still thrive in niche scenes, but mainstream pop increasingly favors the “fast-food” style—often around two minutes.

The Composer’s Deeper Role

Recognizing that emotions can be influenced through sound makes the composer’s task even more intriguing. It’s not only about harmony or melody—it’s about shaping collective memory and meaning.
Throughout history, music has been used to embed ideas—from protest anthems and theatre music to advertising jingles and even the Psalms, whose lyrics and metrics endured long after their original melodies were lost.


However, the commoditization of this art may disrupt one of humanity’s most sublime forms of transcendence. I’ll share this song by Porcupine Tree as a critique of the current scene.

Footnote Key

  1. Brain Connectivity & Aesthetic Experience — PMC
  2. High-Order Areas & Auditory Cortex — Princeton fMRI Study
  3. Music-Evoked Nostalgia & Reward Circuits — Wiley
  4. Sad/Happy Music & Mind-Wandering — Nature
  5. Music Enhances Script-Driven Imagery — arXiv
  6. Three-Minute Pop Song — Wikipedia (Historical Context)
  7. Hit Songs Are Getting Shorter — The Economist
  8. Pop Songs Shorter in the Streaming/TikTok Era — Washington Post
  9. Mean Song Duration by Year — Statista
  10. Daniel J. Levitin – This Is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession (2006) – A popular-science classic explaining how music perception, memory, and reward work in the brain.
  11. Roger Scruton – The Aesthetics of Music (1997) – A philosophical exploration of the metaphysical and aesthetic nature of music.

Marcelo Baldin
In AESTHETICS

From Surface to Substance

The word “aesthetics” is not superficial — we are the ones who made it so.

Originally, aesthetics derives from the Greek aisthesis, meaning “perception through the senses.” It goes beyond what is merely visible, encompassing that which reveals meaning, interiority, and the very reason for something’s existence.

By reducing “aesthetics” to superficial procedures or a thin layer of appearance — whether in the body, in objects, or in environments — we neglect the fact that every form expresses a content. Form, therefore, is the language of the interior.

If we use the word only to describe what is superficial, it is our own vision that becomes limited.
Aesthetics is not confined to vanity; it represents the visible manifestation of the invisible.

At the same time, even without using the term “aesthetics,” behavior that focuses solely on the outward aspect of appearance reveals a lack of inner meaning: the greater the effort to seem something, the less substance there often is.

Therefore, if we are concerned with aesthetics, it is essential first to care for the content — because the exterior inevitably reflects the interior.

For Kant, aesthetics is not vanity: it is the experience of harmony between our perception and the form of an object — something that awakens in us a sense of fitness that does not depend on ornament or fashion.

For Schopenhauer, aesthetics is not superficial: it is precisely what frees us from the superficiality of desire and connects us to something deeper.

In essence, aesthetics is not an accessory to life but a mirror of who we are.
When reduced to the veneer of appearances, it loses its purpose; when cultivated from within, it becomes an authentic expression of meaning. Kant reminds us that true beauty is a harmony that needs no ornament, while Schopenhauer shows that aesthetic contemplation draws us away from the futility of wanting and closer to what is essential.

To care for aesthetics, therefore, is above all to care for the depth it manifests — the soul — because every truly beautiful form is born from genuine substance.
Aesthetics is not confined to looks or to the way we dress, but to everything that shapes our taste and our interactions with the world.

Marcelo Baldin
In AESTHETICS

Ideation in the AI-era

Years ago, I embarked on a music project called Omega Code. We made modest progress as a group, but the project ultimately stalled. The primary reason was pragmatic: I realized that advancing to the next stage would require a disproportionate investment of time and energy—one that would threaten my livelihood. To turn it into a sustainable primary source of income, I would have had to make it the center of my professional life. I chose not to. Instead, I brought the project to a close, leaving it as a vivid memory rather than a career. I focused on Combustion Studio instead.

Despite its brevity, Omega Code became an unexpected apprenticeship. It taught me valuable lessons about the music industry, including the importance of collaboration and leadership, as well as the interplay between aesthetics and creativity. Much of our sonic experimentation was driven by visual inputs, a synesthetic approach where imagery shaped sound. Being deeply immersed in the creative field, I benefited from the contributions of many collaborators who subtly shaped the project.

One of the most surreal aspects was the global reach of our visual campaign. Before we released a single track, a series of poster designs sparked international attention. The project existed as an MVP (minimum viable product), yet people engaged as if it were a cultural artifact. We received over 500 illustrations from around the world; designers used our template to generate their own variations. The triangular motif we used triggered a brief design trend in 2009—a slight fever that seemed disproportionate to our scale.

The triangle puzzled many: Why a triangle if the name was Omega Code? Our symbol, inspired by the Christian Trinity, was less a literal reference to “omega” than an emblem of the project’s philosophical roots. As Jungian psychology might suggest, symbols carry meaning beyond logic, surfacing archetypes that resonate collectively with others.

A decade after closing Omega Code, we now find ourselves in the midst of the AI surge. Its influence reaches across disciplines. While many express concern over potential disruptions, I regard this era as an unprecedented opportunity. For the first time, ideas themselves—not just final products—are becoming effortless to manifest.

Back then, many of my conceptual ideas remained unfulfilled because they demanded budgets I didn’t have. Today, a well-crafted prompt can breathe life into concepts that once seemed unattainable. When ideas are grounded in coherent principles, aesthetics, and personal vision, AI becomes a tool to overcome what Jung called the “archetypes of the collective unconscious.”

Prototyping—once a luxury—is now accessible to anyone with curiosity. Since the early 2000s, the internet democratized creativity; today’s AI tools amplify that democratization exponentially. This is neither optimism nor pessimism; it is simply an acknowledgment of historical momentum.

Even brief engagement with old Omega Code concepts recently yielded results that were unimaginable at the time—3D experiments, photographic mock-ups, and even musical sketches. Yet there remains a danger in assuming that AI will deliver finished work. As the painter Chuck Close once said, “Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” Technology offers tools, not miracles; the art still requires discipline, hard work, and human intention.

Were Omega Code to arise today, it would sound and look entirely different, shaped by new tools and cultural currents. My intention in revisiting it is not nostalgia but an invitation: to emphasize ideation and hands-on creation—to remind us that tools alone do not make the artist.

”“Inspiration is for amateurs;
the rest of us just show up and get to work.”

Chuck Close

We achieved amazing results with the Omega Code project, particularly through the collaboration of talented artists who contributed to the posters. Notable individuals involved included Joshua Davis, Mike Cina, Nelson Balaban, Tom Muller, Robert Lindström, Michael Paul Young, and Motomichi Nakamura, among others. Gabriel Wickbold took the final photograph for the album cover, while Brendan Duffey, known for his work with Bruce Dickinson, Sheryl Crow, and Kendrick Lamar, handled the album’s mastering. Still, the effort required to bring this project to life was significantly greater than what is typically needed today.

One should take advantage of the zeitgeist rather than be overwhelmed by it.
There are no excuses for being idle.

Suggested Reading

– On Symbols & Archetypes:
– Carl Jung, Man and His Symbols (1964): “The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity.”

– On Creativity & Labor:
– Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention, for the concept of “flow” in creative work.

– On Technology & Art:
– Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction — for historical parallels between earlier tech shifts and AI.

– On Prototyping & Design:
– Eric Ries, The Lean Startup — for the concept of MVP as applied to art and music.

Marcelo Baldin
In MIND

The Paradox of Connection

We live in a paradoxical time.

Social media has brought an enormous leap in connectivity between people. It eliminated intermediaries that once controlled information and democratized areas that used to be dominated by gatekeepers.
At the same time, it has brought intense side effects: it has amplified extremes, fueled aggression, and heightened anxiety. The neurological consequences are already felt on a global scale.

On the other hand, if we try to restrain the freedom that the internet has given us, we face another problem. We become even more vulnerable to control by governments and conglomerates, often without even realizing what is happening around us. This leaves us with two options:

- remain unaware and be run over by events, suffering the consequences of ignorance;

- or stay connected, but at the cost of neurosis.

Some may argue that a similar phenomenon occurred when television became accessible to the masses. But the intensity now is incomparable.

We can consider adopting methods suggested by authors such as Cal Newport, Jaron Lanier, and Neil Postman. Their proposals aim to reduce the impact of data overload without letting us be completely consumed by it. Yet, they often leave us somewhat detached, reliant on intermediaries.

Furthermore, almost none of these works address two crucial issues today: the Dead Internet Theory and Artificial Intelligence.

Until we find a solution, we continue to walk a tightrope—balanced between anguish and ignorance.

Marcelo Baldin
In AESTHETICS

Cycles of Aesthetics

From time to time, society turns to the past to draw new impulses from it. This occurs because, at certain moments, the present no longer provides inspiration or meaningful prospects for the future. When the contemporary world appears stagnant or saturated, we return to what has already proven to hold vigor and significance.

Such movements arise periodically. The avant-garde often reaches a point of saturation: its creative energy begins to wear thin, and the dominant aesthetic starts to feel excessive or even destructive. While this does not necessarily lead to “social collapse,” there is a threshold of cultural rupture beyond which cycles of revisitation and renewal emerge.

These revivals are sometimes dismissed by the intellectual elite as mere “nostalgia.” Yet they are not simply nostalgic; rather, they represent efforts to rebuild upon foundations that once proved fruitful, now reshaped with new techniques and contexts. Such movements act as attempts to recalibrate the sensibility of an age and tend to spread most visibly through the arts. The Renaissance, Classicism, Romanticism, and others were each driven by reflection on the paths already taken and by the search for both aesthetic and existential adjustment.

Before the internet, these processes unfolded slowly, often taking decades to consolidate and disseminate. Today, however, we witness constant micro-revolutions, which appear to be converging toward a larger revision of the Zeitgeist. The past few decades have brought intense disruptions across multiple fields, reflected in a fragmented and chaotic aesthetic landscape. The pursuit of the sublime, once a guiding force in the arts, has to some extent been replaced by a culture of shock. The accelerated flow of information challenges human capacities for assimilation, generating a kind of stress that verges on incompatibility with our nature.

In response, a quieter movement has begun to take shape—one oriented toward simplicity, tranquility, and reconnection with what endures. It manifests in social and intellectual practices that resist both rampant consumerism and rigid ideological demands. Frequently labeled as conservatism, this impulse in fact acquires an avant-garde quality within the current context. Wearied by impositions, many are once again seeking the sublime—through a kind of futuristic revival that combines critiques of technology with a retreat from mass-produced pop culture.

From Amusing Ourselves to Death (Neil Postman, 1985) to Digital Minimalism (Cal Newport, 2019), calls for a more frugal and meaningful life have multiplied. Yet this impulse coexists with opposing forces that invest in the bizarre and the ephemeral. We thus live in tension between utopias and dystopias, both reflected in contemporary aesthetics. The key question is what kind of fruits each tendency will ultimately bear.

In the end, aesthetics divide into two broad orientations: those that seek only the fleeting instant and those that strive for the perennial. Their results, of course, are very different. Over the long term, some currents will endure as transformative, while others will be remembered merely as passing phases—like the Lisztomania of the nineteenth century.

Marcelo Baldin
In MIND

Signal to Noise

The most valuable thing I’ve gained from stepping away from social media is this: We are constantly bombarded by noise. It clouds our thoughts, weakens our attention, and pushes us toward the average — the easiest opinions, the quickest reactions, the loudest takes. In that flux, clarity is rare, and poor decisions become routine.

Some contemporary composers, as well as cultural thinkers more broadly, suggest that noise can be embraced and even enjoyed. But that can only be true if there’s a cognitive pattern behind it — something that offers structure, something we can think with. Without that, there is no line of thought to follow. Noise, in this sense, is anything that resists contemplation.

Noise is the overflow of misinformation. It’s not just distortion — distraction, excess, and the dilution of meaning. It floods the mind with stimuli but offers no shape, direction, or pause for reflection.

Unless we train ourselves to listen through the noise, to filter and focus, we risk becoming passive receivers. We hear everything, yet absorb nothing. In a world saturated with sound and signal, the ability to truly listen may be the most essential discipline we can cultivate.

Marcelo Baldin
In MIND

Silence

“Silence is the language of God. All else is poor translation.” – misattributed to Ludwig van Beethoven.

To get inspired, we must find a way to be quiet. Countless people retreat to reflect and recover. Lent is an ideal time to do it. Beethoven took long walks in nature to develop musical ideas. Claude Debussy – Found inspiration in the quiet contemplation of nature. Henry David Thoreau – Lived in solitude at Walden Pond to connect with deeper insights. Max Richter – Uses silence and minimalism as core elements in his music, often retreating into solitude for composition. Arvo Pärt – Known for his “tintinnabuli” style, he spent years in near silence before returning to composition. Björk – Frequently isolates herself in nature for inspiration, especially in Iceland’s quiet landscapes.

Lamentations 3:26 🤫

Marcelo Baldin
In MIND

Pain

Pain reminds us that we have a limited and finite body, but it should also remind us that we are not our body; we only have a body. We are spirits, but if we think we are only a body, we will enter into continuous despair, suffocated by materialism, immediacy, and the anguish of avoiding discomfort. The awareness of who we are frees us from this finitude.

Once we are free of this conception of finitude, we can truly aspire to things greater than us. This can be reflected in the Zeitgeist; those who aim for trends are often stuck in their immediacy, whereas those who strive for superior aesthetics create timeless art, societal, or scientific pieces. This thought frees us from thinking only about our egos and allows us to live as a whole. Struggling to create is part of the process; it shouldn’t be avoided.