The guilt in monetizing my passion
To pursue my passion is to sell pieces of my own fire as light, hoping it will be enough to keep the dark from taking everything else.
It feels almost sinful to admit that art is not enough on its own. Passion alone cannot pay tuition fees, transportation fare, electricity bills, or the small comforts that make difficult weeks feel survivable. As a writer, I grew up believing that art should be created for its own sake—that the purest form of creativity asks for nothing in return. Because of that, I often find myself carrying a strange guilt whenever I think about earning from my work. Not because I believe artists do not deserve compensation, but because somewhere along the way, I began to question my own intentions.
The truth is that I have already done many of the things I once dreamed about. I uploaded spoken word poetry videos online after spending hours rehearsing every pause and every breath. I printed my poems into small collections and sold them at markets alongside other independent Filipino artists. I worked toward monetization, tracked engagement, and promoted my work hoping it would reach more people. Yet even as opportunities slowly appeared, so did an uncomfortable realization: I was no longer thinking only about what I wanted to create. I was also thinking about what would perform well.
I do not want every poem to become a calculated decision. I do not want every creative impulse to be filtered through the question of whether it will succeed online.
I began asking questions that had little to do with the art itself. Would this poem gain more engagement if it were shorter? Should I make it more relatable? More heartbreaking? More romantic? Would people stay if I changed the title? If I followed a trend? If I posted at a different time? Gradually, my creative process became intertwined with strategy. What once started as a desire to express myself sometimes felt like an attempt to predict what an algorithm might reward.
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That realization unsettled me more than any financial struggle ever could. The guilt was not in monetizing my art, but in noticing how easily external validation could influence my creative choices. There were moments when I found myself creating with an audience already in mind, anticipating reactions before I had even finished writing. Instead of asking what I genuinely wanted to say, I caught myself asking what people would want to hear. The more I paid attention to numbers, the more I worried that I was drifting away from the reasons I started creating in the first place.
Of course, I understand why these thoughts emerge. Visibility creates opportunities. A wider audience means more support and a greater chance of sustaining a creative career. There is nothing inherently wrong with wanting people to see your work. Yet I sometimes fear becoming so focused on growth that I lose sight of the joy that first drew me to writing. I do not want every poem to become a calculated decision. I do not want every creative impulse to be filtered through the question of whether it will succeed online.
I want to pursue my passion seriously, but I also want to protect the part of me that creates without expectation. I want to share my work widely, but I do not want my sense of artistic worth to become dependent on engagement metrics. I want to build a future through my creativity, yet I do not want creativity itself to become another productivity goal.
Perhaps the struggle is between creation and performance; between making something because it feels introspective and expressive, and because it feels marketable. I am still learning how to navigate that tension. Some days I write freely. Other days, I catch myself thinking about reach, engagement, and visibility before I even think about the words themselves.
For now, all I can do is remain conscious of that contradiction. I can acknowledge the reality that artists deserve to be paid while also protecting the sincerity that made me love creating in the first place. The goal now is to ensure that monetization never becomes the reason I create. And so I continue writing. I continue posting videos, printing poems, and sharing pieces of myself with strangers because I am still trying to find a way to let passion and sustainability coexist. I want to make a living from my art without making my art live only to make a living.
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