This seems very insightful to me. In physics, it's definitely my experience that over time I gain fluency with more and more powerful concepts that let me derive new things in much faster and simpler ways. And I find myself consciously working ideas over in my mind with, I think, the explicit goal of advancing this process.

The funny thing about this is that before I gain these "superpowers," I'll read an explanation in a textbook, which is in terms of high-level ideas that I haven't completely grasped yet, so the reading doesn't help as much as it should. The book claims, "this follows immediately from Lorentz invariance," and I don't really see what's going on. Then, later, after I've understood those ideas, I find myself explaining things to myself in much the same words as the textbook: "I see! It's simple! It follows immediately from Lorentz invariance!"--but now this really is an explanation, and the words have a lot more meaning.

I'm reminded of the Interdict of Merlin in HMPOR.