It is a tragedy, and that's why I find this essay naive, arrogant, and simply dishonest. Passions don't all have the same economic viability. "Do what you love" is trite and useless advice.
I think part of it was growing up with a thesbian mother and painter father and seeing first hand how doing what you love isn't enough to feed yourself. It stings a little for other people to claim that you don't need to "work" if you just do what you love. I don't bemoan Paul Graham for his success... but its insulting.
Interestingly enough, PG also loves painting almost more than anything. He wrote a book about it called "Hackers and Painters". Extrapolate whatever you'd like from that fact.
I think part of it was growing up with a thesbian mother and painter father and seeing first hand how doing what you love isn't enough to feed yourself. It stings a little for other people to claim that you don't need to "work" if you just do what you love. I don't bemoan Paul Graham for his success... but its insulting.