What is animation to you?

What is animation to you? I have been struggling for a definition, each one I come up with destroys itself before my eyes and becomes cack.
we know what it is, how do we sumarise what it is without it sounding cack? pretentious? insincere? to sincere?

animation is - funny stuff.
animation is - trickfilm (I like this one - German)
animation is - cartoons, isn't it? (Welsh one)
animation is - the fusion of sound and image over time to equate to the authors message.
animation is - stupid.
animation is - fantastic.
animation is - whatever you want it to be.
animation is - frustration right there.
animation is - inadequate, expensive, flamboyant, ridiculous.
animation is - derided.
animation is - not an art.
animation is - best left undefined.
animation is - you fool.
animation is - shapeshifter.

enough, but wait a minute. If we return to the Greek origins of the word 'animation’ then we are likely to be drawn to Aristotle and his distinction between that which is alive - and that which is inanimate. The thing that marks the former off from the latter is psuche (from which 'psychology' is derived) and this can be variously translated as soul, breathe or life. At one level, thus, we can talk of animation as 'making things move or happen' - much as animators do of cartoon pictures. At another level there is something more - giving life to'. This idea runs quite closely to the concerns of experiential educators.
Animation is - internal and external movement displayed
animation is - action, acting, stillness, emotion,
animation is a muse. and that is amusing.