My interpretation is that rather he was somewhat interested in it, saw that it lead to lifestyle he wanted and thus he made himself do the work for several year

My interpretation is that rather he was somewhat interested in it, saw that it lead to lifestyle he wanted and thus he made himself do the work for several years. There's no doubt that Paul is a conscientious person and also somewhat interested in painting, so it worked out for a while. Also, notice though how often he went into multi-year "distractions" from painting - the computers were calling him all this time. Ultimately, when there were no more distraction and all the time in the world to paint, he quit within 6 months.