Time to Say Goodbye

“All things must pass. All things must pass away.”

That’s what George Harrison sang all those many years ago. I agree. All things do, and must, pass away.

I started my first blog in 1998 or thereabouts when I was a grad student at UC Berkeley. It was called “Life is a Random Draw.” That blog has since been deleted.

That’s understandable since the internet is ephemeral. Impermanence and change are the defining characteristics of the internet as much as it of the universe, as the Buddha realized about 2,700 years ago.

When I started working with Rajesh Jain in 2003, he suggested that I write about India’s development. Rajesh is the prime motivator of this blog. Certainly he is not the writer but he provided the inspiration. Rajesh wanted me to write about how Indian could become developed. That explains the title of this blog: “Atanu Dey on India’s Development.”

As everyone who knows me knows, I am completely devoid of all ambitions. I am quite content to do nothing. As I like to say, “I just sits and thinks. And sometimes I just sits.” I have to confess that I rarely “just sits” because, thanks to the internet, I have stuff to watch, to read and think about.

The fact is that not too many people have the option to “just sits and thinks” and even fewer people have the option to “just sits.” Most people have to get doing stuff and that means that they cannot afford to “thinks.” They are forced to get on without thinking. And therein lies the problem.

If you cannot afford the time to think, you are pretty much stuck in poverty.

Anyway, let me get to the point. I am ending this blog. It’s time to say goodbye. For a while I have been neglecting writing here partly because of my course blog. But there’s a more pressing reason why I am not paying attention to this blog.

The fact is that I have moved on. I am no longer interested in “India’s development.” I have not abandoned that project. I am moving on to a broader theme: I want to talk about how I understand how the world works. Therefore the change in the title of this blog: “Random Draws on How the World Works.” I want to expand the scope of this blog.

Goodnight, goodbye, and may your god go with you.

 

 

 

Author: Atanu Dey

Economist.

13 thoughts on “Time to Say Goodbye”

  2. Some questions/observations below:

    The blog’s title still says, “Atanu Dey on India’s development”. Where is the other title?
    Will you be blogging at the deeshaa.org domain itself? I have that in my Feedly-reader list.
    I get an email notification whenever you publish a new blog. Will that feature remain unaffected?

    Atanu, I wish you all the best in whatever you choose to do. You, Ayn Rand, Gurucharan Das, Swaminathan Aiyar and Paul Graham have been a significant influence on the free-marketeer in me. I cannot thank you enough.

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  3. Thank you for all your time and effort. This blog has really has taught me the importance of thinking from first principles and looking at facts and data, however at odds that might be to popular culture or media portrayals of the world around us.

    Thanks Again

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  4. Hi Atanu

    I have followed your blog to 15+ years. Thank you for sharing your world view, your distilled thinking about economics and shaping up my thinking (and perhaps the process of thinking as well).

    I am sad that you are ending this blog. But if you are publishing any other stream I’ll happily be part of the audience.

    Good luck !

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    1. Hi Arvind,

      I am delighted to know that you have followed by blog for so long. It is for people like you that I decided that I will expand the scope of this blog. I am not done with writing this blog; just that I want to move away from “India’s development.” I have written much on that topic and it is time to talk about shoes and ships and sealing wax, and cabbages and kings and whether pigs have wings.

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  5. Your blog was responsible for rejuvenating my interest in economics. I first got to know of Hayek, Mises, et al from your blog. Your content was edifying and stimulating for further study.

    I am grateful. Thank you.

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