Every few months someone writes that following your passion is bad advice, and that you should build skills first and let interest follow.
There is something to that. But the version of the argument I keep seeing quietly assumes your work belongs to someone else, and that your job is to become useful to them.
What I am after is different. I want the work to be mine, which changes the arithmetic completely: interest is not a luxury, it is the fuel that keeps you going through the unpaid part.
The honest caveat: an audience pays for value, not for enthusiasm. Both things can be true.
Placeholder essay. The real ones will be longer, with the specifics that make them worth reading.