I’m Melissa Nadia Viviana

And this is my ambitious project of taking 20 years of writing and compiling it onto my domain.

After years of writing in every format, for every situation… I amassed quite a number of style & genres.

Some of my writing was formatted as a book. Others as essays. Dialogues. Threads. Emails. Podcast episodes. Notes jotted down 5 minutes before I went to sleep, or 5 minutes after I woke up.

I wrote memoir, non-fiction, fiction, articles about current events.

For years, I wrote for all situations, about all life topics, and in all formats.

I just didn’t quite know where to put it all.

Nor, how to get a handle on the various audiences that these types of writing might appeal to.

When I decided to collate & compile the various pieces of work right here,

I knew that I had to divide the work into “Collections” “Formats,” & “Tiers.”

So here’s what you’ll see on every article & podcast episode within this website:

Each piece of work will come with an intro similar to this:

Collection: The Beat Philosopher
Format: Essay
Author: Melissa Nadia Viviana
Date: November 24, 2024
Tier: Public
Tags: Plato, Ideal Societies, Evolution, Karl Popper

There are nearly twenty collections mapped out so far.

Each Collection hosts a specific theme that the work embodies.

• Philosophy

• Activism

• Psychology

• Memoir

The Format, on the other hand, will tell you whether it’s:

• an aphorism; poetry;

• a lengthy essay;

• an excerpt from one of my books;

• a social media thread;

• or a podcast transcript.

Cross-Posting

Sometimes I weave together various themes in a single body of work: for example, one of my recent essays on Substack talked about Nietzsche, grief, and election propaganda in a single essay.

Let’s be real, that’s the way our minds work!

All of my writing resides in a single frame within my mind––and the interdependency between subjects is ever-present.

But one thing I’m trying to do by creating these collections is to help the reader know what they’re signing up for.

If two topics are in a single essay, then the Collection label will have a “cross-post” of two collections.

Collection: The Beat Philosopher
Cross-Post: Resist Rebel Revolt
Format: Essay
Author: Melissa Nadia Viviana
Date: March 4, 2024
Tier: Public
Tags: Grief, Propaganda, Nietzsche

That way a reader not interested in philosophy, but interested in activism knows that there might be some insight about the election hidden within this essay on Nietzsche.

Some collections have the same theme, but different formats.

For example, the collection: Resist Rebel Revolt contains essays on Activism. Generally these are thoughtful, long-form essays.

But because there’s a very exhausting news cycle spitting out political sensationalism on a daily basis, there’s some writing I’ve done that just doesn’t have time to grow into a lengthy essay.

Sometimes these are just bits and pieces––fragments, really––of my reactions to the daily news.

Tidbits like these are often called “aphorisms.”

These are also sometimes time sensitive. So I created a collection called All The News That’s Fit To Write––which are aphorisms and fragments about politics and current events.

These will be small threads often relating to the news or social concerns.

And if these bits and pieces grow, they might one day become an essay for Resist Rebel Revolt down the road.

Make sense?

This will also help me sort my exhaustive philosophy writing.

For example: there are open philosophy discussions I hosted over the years which take a different format than the original, opinionated essays I’ve written from my own worldview.

One is an open-ended “thought-experiment.” The other is a detailed, subjective viewpoint.

And both of them are different than the historical insights I might write about previous philosophers, themselves.

By having different Collections, I can honor all of the formats:

• a discussion or dialogue;

• an original essay;

• a lesson on a historic philosopher;

• or even a review of a specific philosophy book

They’re all technically one theme. They’re just different approaches to that theme. And that’s why the various Collections and their corresponding formats help to prepare the reader for what’s to come.

Word Count

Behind the scenes, it was always difficult for me to decide whether to publish a 200 word aphorism or a 15,000 word series of lessons.

This website attempts to honor both formats––and the audiences who might be interested in one or the other.

As I continue to collate these pieces of work together, you will also see: “thought courses” on philosophy that are stylized into lessons or chapters.

While there will be plenty of isolated essays throughout the website, the “courses” will show up in a cluster, and I suggest you read them consecutively.

All I ask is that you have patience with my creative nature as I prepare and add to these courses––especially in one of the most volatile years of my life (2025).

The truth is, I don’t quite know where the world is heading right now. 

One last aspect of the website are the “Membership Tiers.”

On Substack, for example: there are tiers between free subscribers & paid subscribers. Believe it or not, this isn’t only for the monetary benefit of the writer. It’s actually for intimacy’s sake.

The best thing about creating exclusive content for paid subscribers is that putting writing behind a paywall allows you to feel safer and more honest with your readers.

This is like having a group therapy session: yes, it’s technically not a private session - you’re sharing these intimate stories with strangers. But the things you share with a small group will always be more honest than the things you might say on a world stage.

This is the main benefit of a paywall––intimacy.

To help facilitate this, I actually created two types of memberships on my website:

a free membership & a paid membership.

The kicker? They’re both behind a “paywall,” technically.

As a free member, you will still have to sign in to view exclusive articles and courses. If you share them on social media, the people who click on the links will have to create an account before they can see the content.

However, I will still have some public articles, for those who aren’t members. So the tiers will look something like this:

• Public Articles - visible to everybody

• Free Membership - exclusive members content

• Paid Membership - premium members content

Feel free to sign up to become a free or paid member below!

The question you might be asking is: are there different memberships for different collections?

The answer is no.

I don’t know what writing you’re interested in reading. And maybe you don’t even know.

Last year, I created two separate Bluesky accounts and two separate Substacks for completely different topics. One was academic & philosophical: (Beat Philosopher). The other was activist & political: (Resist Rebel Revolt).

And yet, I had conversations with the same people who showed up on both lists.

So I’ve learned that separation is good—in measure. But there’s no sense in asking you to commit to a single collection or a single style.

One paid membership gets access to 100% of everything on the website.

Feel free to explore the Collections that resonate and ignore the rest!

What I am going to do is add to the various Collections throughout the month - as the mood strikes me.

And then each email subscriber & member will get a weekly digest of articles from the various Collections.

Most magazines and newspapers have this, because they have dozens of writers posting for their magazines on a daily basis.

Well—I have dozens of creative personalities posting in my head. And I’m often torn between the desire to publish 7 articles on 7 different topics in a single week.

Unlike Substack - in which the entire essay is embedded within the email—with a weekly digest, I can alert you to all of the new articles from various collections.

Then YOU get to decide, which essay stands out.