I wonder if this is a relatable experience.

When I was in high school, I used to feel deeply at the fact that other students would not understand things that came to me naturally, and I really didn't want that to be true. So, I tried very hard to devise all sorts of ways of being able to teach intuition and subjects much faster than they are currently taught. I was quite passionate about this and had strong opinions.

Later on, life taught me that what I could do was in large part genetics, and so there's no way the intuition I had could be taught or conveyed to someone who wasn't also quite gifted. That the "teaching strategies" which I thought up were actually often used to teach EG/PG kids (and so I had reinvented the wheel), but wouldn't work with average or even vanilla gifted children.

It's like on a scale from 0-100, if someone's talent is a 2, you can push them to a 4 with exceptional teaching, but some people just start at a 10 and this can not be taught to someone who does not innately possess it. The futility of the entire exercise made me give up teaching. From personal experience, I know that someone with talent will teach themselves using books and by asking questions online if nothing else is available and often doesn't require instruction to get to a very high level.

Height killed interest in basketball playing and coaching.
I wonder if this is a relatable experience.

When I was in high school, I used to feel deeply at the fact that other students could not play basketball competitively with me, without great exertion, and I really didn't want that to be true. So, I tried very hard to devise all sorts of ways of being able to demonstrate ball handling techniques much faster than they are currently taught. I was quite passionate about this (think Harlem Globetrotters).

Later on, life taught me that what I could do was in large part genetics, and so there's no way the basketball finesse I had could be taught or conveyed to someone who wasn't also quite tall and coordinated. That the "teaching strategies" which I thought up were actually often used to teach professional teams (and so I had reinvented the wheel), but wouldn't work with average or even fairly tall and athletic children.

It's like on a scale from 0-100, if someone's height is a 2, you can push them to play competitively with persons having a height of 4 on the scale, with exceptional coaching, but some people just start at a height of 10 on the scale, and playing competitively with these cannot be taught to someone who possesses a much shorter stature.

The futility of the entire exercise made me give up playing and coaching. From personal experience, I know that someone with talent will teach themselves during pick-up games at a local park and by watching others play in person and on TV if nothing else is available and often doesn't require coaching or membership on formal teams to get to a very high level.

Yes, I believe you have articulated a relatable experience insofar as that what you have observed about the human trait of intellect is somewhat analogous to other human traits, such as talent in athletics being related to physical attributes.

However one need not give up teaching/pedagogy after developing such insights, but rather may adapt to fit the instruction to the readiness and ability of the student, so that each may learn in their zone of proximal development, and grow to be their personal best.

I mean that the way I was explaining it would only work for a miniature me or someone very similar -- even my younger siblings and parents would not be able to do it (and I have tried). The idea was essentially to ground insights in common sense, like mechanics would follow quite naturally from throwing a ball, which everyone has mastered. If you can dissect the process of throwing a ball, you realize that "obviously" you apply a force in a certain direction, and gravity acts downwards at a constant rate; if it didn't, you would never be able to make an accurate shot. In elastic collisions, the angle of incidence is "obviously" equal to the angle of reflection. And so on. So it takes zero time to learn these things because they follow as a natural consequence of what you already know. Rather, you already know it before it's taught, and you just need to realize that you know it.

But I didn't realize that this wasn't "common knowledge" as I had expected, and not everyone has that physical intuition. A lot of people can't make the connection instinctively while playing billiards that you simply need to map out lines and execute it accurately, for example. And those who already possess that intuition would not need it to be told to them explicitly. They would also have immediately, instinctively made the connection.

So, in a lot of cases, I realized that I was trying to map out "common sense" in a way that was incontrovertible. Those who had it wouldn't need to be taught, and those who didn't would seldom immediately see or understand it, and so for them the current (read slow) system is appropriate. Either way, I haven't achieved anything new which I was hoping for at the time (I wanted to reform the institution of teaching, even back then I had high ambitions lol). As of now, I would probably just redirect people to established meta-analyses and courses on learning because they cover most of what I figured out.

Great observations and interesting insights, giftedamateur.