#27 - What's Good, 2025?
Greetings and New Year’s salutations from The Mustard Sandwich. This is awkward because I just moved the newsletter over to Buttondown from Substack, yet I had a pre-existing ancient (~3 years ago) subscriber base here on Buttondown from when I first started writing this thing during the pandemic.
I did it all wrong, okay? I didn’t export that first batch of subscribers to Substack, and import the olive oil and all of that. I’m sorry. So, just in case you don’t want to be here, if this newsletter is an affront to your existence, scroll to the bottom of this email and hit “Unsubscribe.” But if you’re like, “No, shutup, I want to stay,” cool!
And if you don’t remember who I am, my name is Swati. I work as consultant in public education, I run a coffee social enterprise, and I’m trying to develop a stronger culture of youth employment and entrepreneurship in my home community in SoCal. Big links to come on that in 2025.
I’m also interested in food, as a business and as stuff we put in our bodies, movies, books, America, and a bunch of other things I can’t think of right now. I write at the intersection of all of this stuff, the convergence of which reveals new ideas, and ways of thinking, doing, and being. For this reason alone, we must write.
Why I moved from Substack to Buttondown.
I feel like I need to address this.
Substack was good to me, I’m not going to lie. It was fun, and I benefited from a few wonderful people recommending my newsletter on that platform. But Substack was really starting to feel like a social network with all the notes, non-subscribing followers, and “follow me and I’ll show you how to 10X your subscriber base” bullshit.
For someone who just wants to ship words, and produce more than she consumes, it became overwhelming. I already have an Instagram doom-scrolling problem, I don’t need more.
I’m also not trying to be fucking famous.
So here we are. This year, I hope to do some guest posts on other newsletters, interview some interesting people starting with my friends, and maybe do some small-time pitching to cute lil mags to connect with like-minded writers and communities.
The goal is authentic engagement and organic growth! So if you want to work on something together or have any ideas for me, reply to this email and let’s connect!
Just one more thing about Substack.
As of the 2024 presidential election, I have been thinking very critically about how and where I am complicit. This is something I always think about anyway as someone who services the gigantic public system of K12 education.
Even if I, as an individual, am trying my damndest to make only a positive impact, by bartering my time and talent for opportunities and funds with a system that continues to render injustices unto the most vulnerable young people, I am complicit.
The fact that Substack is VC-backed, the fact that Andreessen Horowitz has donated large sums of money to Donald Trump, has made me feel complicit. As someone who aspires to hold her contradictions more publicly this year, and be truly, authentically committed to social change to the highest degree possible, I can’t turn a blind eye to things like this anymore.
I have to hold myself accountable, first by divesting from institutions and practices that go against what I believe in. So, thank you Substack, but also, like a just-ok boyfriend, goodbye.
What I want more of in 2025
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
Albert Camus
This sums up the volition I want to bring into 2025 — greater freedom. Freedom from old ways of thinking. Freedom from fear of change. Freedom from the feeling of lacking agency or being caught in headwinds that I didn’t create (read: the horrible choices of politicians).
I also want to further redesign my career and livelihood away from systems that are reluctant to change as much as I am willing to. I put some stuff into motion in late 2024 that is going to require me to make some pretty swift and clear decisions on how to allocate my professional time moving forward and basically achieve this. I am both dreading and looking forward to that, and you being here matters.
Thanks to everyone who supported me, The Mustard Sandwich, or any of my other endeavors in 2024, and I hope you’ll stick around.
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