I make a decent living as a software engineer but music has been a passion of mine since I started playing the cello when I was 6. I switched to guitar when I was 13, worked real hard, got a scholarship to Berklee, went there, got burned out with the process that you need to go through with a band trying to make a living with your music and didn't make squat for almost 5 years. Now I was lucky. I decided to go into computers with some good family advice, and it turned out not only was I very good at it, I really enjoyed it. It was something that I found to be a lot of fun, challenging, satisfying and very creative.
Programming is an art of it's own.
There's a definite form, flow, kind of a Zen to it. Maybe this isn't an easy comparison for a lot of people to see, but to break it down, it's something that I enjoy and get as much creative fulfillment as I do from music. But reading that article really made me think about a lot of things. And my music and art is there for you to download and enjoy. I had been bouncing around ideas to really get more serious about trying to get a CD 'out'.