Art is anything you can do well, anything you can do with quality, anything where you have options of doing it well or poorly… and there aren’t many things that don’t have options of doing them well or poorly…
— Robert Pirsig
Economics is akin to J. R. R. Tolkien’s Light of Valinor — the light of art undivorced from reason, that sees things both scientifically (or philosophically) and imaginatively (or sub-creatively) and says that they are good — as beautiful… Good economists are akin to J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay’s artificers — they render hidden truths as works of beauty…
Being a proud economist, I fulfill my moral duty to contribute to the quality of the world. How? By applying accumulated knowledge to produce objects of beauty and truth, with skill and ingenuity… I also have a love for things that grow…