I more generally think limiting your identity-surface is a good idea, because I suspect strongly-held identities do subtly hem you in and shape your choices (wh

I more generally think limiting your identity-surface is a good idea, because I suspect strongly-held identities do subtly hem you in and shape your choices (which can be exacerbated if your identification was mistaken.) That said, I narrowly disagree that it's a weak distinction (I wholeheartedly agree it's a messy one) that only has currency because people are desperate to self-diagnose. A few thoughts: - We are (broadly) too quick to self-diagnose, but I think it's mostly a byproduct of more general behavior. We're too quick to identify. We lean too heavily on categorization and especially exclusive categories and once the categories are reified, have a hard time seeing the variety they were trying to carve order out of. - I don't want to project, but I wonder if you find the distinction weak because you mostly experience the middle of a normal distribution produced by a messy attempt to quantify a forest of human emotion and behavior. - I think the I/E spectrum has salience because it has at least a little power to explain how people, relationships, and societies all work at scale in a way that defuses/de-personalizes a common source of friction. - About like I'd expect, I can only think of a few people I've ever known for whom their status as an introvert or extravert is so essential that it's part of my own model of their behavior.