In a few weeks I'll be going to that place. Through a great stroke of fortune, I have the opportunity to teach a seminar on the Buddhist view of the mind (and related matters) at Princeton. I'm looking forward to everything about this--the intellectual stimulus of curious undergraduates, the freewheeling discussion of deep subjects, the distinctively benign atmosphere of a college campus.

And, to be honest, I'm looking forward to getting up in the morning without feeling I have to develop an opinion about something and then publicize it. (Not that you asked, but: I just counted up my posts, and I've averaged one per weekday. And most were basically full-fledged columns, more like "pieces" than "posts"--which just goes to show that old habits die hard.) However, I have no doubt that any sense of relief will be outweighed by pangs of withdrawal. "Unique" is an overused word, but over the past year I've had the benefit of a unique station. I've had complete editorial freedom and I've benefited both from the aura of The Atlantic's age-old and carefully preserved prestige and from the power of The Atlantic's current editorial operation.

I somehow managed to keep the words "brand" and "platform" out of the previous sentence, but, yes, the shorter version is that this web site is a great platform with a great brand that afforded me great freedom, and the uniqueness lies in the fact that there's nowhere else--literally nowhere else--I could have gotten all three of these things in such great measure.

I want to say a little more about the brand and the platform. I know it's not a news flash to say that the digital age has been unkind to magazines and newspapers. And it's only slightly less obvious that the digital age hasn't been kind to magazine-like websites or newspaper-like websites. But those of us who have seen these truths unfold up close--that is, journalists who have seen the business of journalism transformed and in some aspects demolished--have an especially keen appreciation of the power of the technological logic behind them. So it seems nearly miraculous to see an enterprise like The Atlantic not just survive but flourish, staying in the black yet staying classy.

I was in touch with The Atlantic's editor, James Bennet, back when he and the magazine's owner, David Bradley, were adapting to an earlier, different incarnation of the internet by assembling a group of blogs to serve as the web site's core. I take some pride in (if I recall correctly) suggesting to James that he talk to Matt Yglesias, who then came to The Atlantic and became one of its early internet stars. But I deserve no credit for two subsequent inspired hires--Bob Cohn, who came from Wired to oversee The Atlantic's web site, and John Gould, Bob's deputy. Having now watched Bob and John work under James's leadership, I have some understanding of The Atlantic's remarkable adaptive record--how, with perfect timing, it has moved beyond the early, blog-o-centric model (which crucially got it a foothold on the web) just as internet journalism moved into what some call the post-blog era. I owe all four of these people--David, James, Bob, and John--thanks for building the environment I've been allowed to inhabit.