And I'll give an anecdote from the other side. I loved math as a kid, as well as logic puzzles, Erector sets, Legos, computers, video games, the whole pre-engineering shebang. My birthday present when I turned 11 was a copy of one of those home design CAD suites. I coded simple websites (helped along by a neighbor who, unfortunately, moved away). I had good grades in advanced courses; seemed on track for some sort of career in some STEM-related field. But I was very much alone in my passion. I couldn't seem to get anyone around me interested in this stuff, nor could I find anyone to share that interest with. I remember once, when I was in middle school, programming a very basic Pokemon battle simulator on my TI-83+. There was a software engineer who went to our church, and I was so excited to show him and get feedback, but he just kind of blew me off.

Probably a few months later, I was watching The Screensavers (remember that?), and they mentioned that users on the TechTV forums were drawing free art requests. The guy who took mine mentioned that he was posting it to deviantArt. "What's that?" I thought. Long story short, I hold a BFA instead of a BS now.

Community takes most people from hobby to passion. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to go it alone.