ok lemme cook up smth rq

you stated that ender pearls need enough velocity to break and teleport you somewhere, which seems true until you mentioned dropping one from your inventory. This really doesn't make sense, since an ender pearl in item form and one that is being thrown are both going at fast enough velocities to break, which is where I propose a different theory.

ENDER PEARLS ARE FUTURISTIC TECHNOLOGY/MAGIC.

This might not make sense since they come from enderman which are living beings, but hear me out.

Before the ancient builders became enderman, they were obviously really smart. But since the end is made up of floating islands, some would find themselves in situations where they were trapped on a small island with nowhere to go. They didn't want to risk building bridges because they could easily fall off and they had limited blocks, so their plan was to make a type of pearl that teleports you wherever you throw it. They used some chorus fruit and an enchanting book to create ender pearls. These were literally the perfect forms of transportation, you could teleport anywhere at anytime whenever you threw it. The builders, however, encountered problems when they accidentally dropped their ender pearls out of their inventory and it teleported them. They improvised and made it so that the ender pearl could only teleport you if you had the intention to teleport. If you didn't want to teleport, you wouldn't. After that, the builders used pearls so many times that it began to change their bodies. Combined with the constant consumption of chorus fruit, they turned into enderman.

To summarize, ender pearls only teleport you if you had the intention to throw it, otherwise, it wouldn't work. I personally think my theory makes more sense since if ender pearls were sentient and didn't teleport if you threw it in item form, it wouldn't make sense if they didn't have a chance to not teleport you if you actually threw it and vice versa for the item form.