I’ll admit, the Government kidnapped me at an early age and taught me blender via electrodes strapped to my brain.
so i guess i’m “gifted” 
LMAO, good one traitor 
.
Well actually the recipe for success is: A bit of luck, a bit of talent and hell of a lot of determination. And that’s true for anything in life.
For example Aggassi won his first major tournament at 16. Everyone thought he was an overnight success, but the truth is, Aggassi started he was 4 years old.
Another example, look at the master painter Dali. Everyone thought he was born with it, yet when you look at his drawings as a child of 5 or 6, they look pretty ordinary.
So the trick is slog it out for ten years doing animation and you end up with a skill not many people have, and then you become valuable. And then you can charge what you like.
It’s all about perception, if you have something rare then it’s valuable. If everyone can do it, then it’s not valuable. And that’s true about the labour market in general, the more rare your skills are the more you get paid.
I like how the game Morrowind said it best,
“The results of hard work and dedication always look like luck to saps. But you know you’ve earned every ounce of your success.”
Luck and gifts, not the same thing. When you look at an artist who is not good now, but has a gift for his art. Also, think of a weight-lifter. He might be good at it, like a gift, but he still has to work at it!
Well I agree with Henrymop. You still have to work at it, if you don’t use it you loose it.
And about making it look easy, well that’s the whole trick. When you mastered it, you make it look easy, then people call you talented. 
It’s all about perception.
But there’s also an element of luck, you have to be the right man at the right place at the right time. Look at Van Gough, the guy was a genius! A true artist,his paintings are extraordinary. Yet in his own life time he was regarded as a Loser, with a capital L.Go figure. If society ain’t ready for you it ain’t ready.
It’s definitely a skill. Yeah…a skill.
It’s also a gift. Gifts may be nice to get, but they still require devotion and time. Some people just aren’t cut out for art, but even if you are cut out for it you’re rough around the edges.
It’s not easy, it’s not (always) fun, but practice makes perfect.
And I suck at animation, hence my reason for not doing any of it.
Ok Dittohead, maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not naturally gifted when it comes to animation.
It just means you will have to work harder to achieve the same result.
But when you do, then that “skill” becomes part of you, and no one no matter how rich or powerful can ever take that away from you.
And I suck at animation, hence my reason for not doing any of it.
…and I refuse to buy lottery tickets until I start winning.
Well, I have to agree with your observation of how it is, of course - one´s
perception of this may differ from the other , but the results of your own
belief speaks for it self (simple: Observe, Learn, do-better, observe again…and
keep going).
Hard work and paying attention to the minute details of every movement,
muscle, joint, facial expression, body-posture (language) etc… will
teach you to become mechanically very sophisticated.
The psychology is in the timing…and if you can pull that off…man…then
you´ve come far!
I´m an professionally educated animator of the Classic and traditional
2-D animation. According to the teachers back then…I was quite “talented”
but very “lazy”.
So yeah… you need to believe in something to get you there.
Hm…goes for me to…
Better get working…
My work is never done, and I truly SUCK! (thats what I usually feel after
10 minutes of thinking that I´m any good)…I´m not negative, just
realistic - and realize that I could do so much better.
Hey I’m right here learning about all this stuff, but I know that what I can do now absolutely dwarfs what I could do even three months ago.
There is more than just learning though. It’s things going, oh wait if I move the vertices this way when doing this thing then more gets done faster, and then retaining that every time you do it. Even if it was a mistake.
I’m a shitty animator right now, but in about six months I’d bet anyone that there will be fewer things that I cannot do, than things that I can.
…I just wish 6 Gig’s of ram could be an aquired talent :-?