That’s because of the second important thing identities share: they matter to people. And they matter, first, because having an identity can give you a sense of how you fit into the social world. Every identity makes it possible, that is, for you to speak as one “I” among some “us”: to belong to some “we.” But a further crucial aspect of what identities offer is that they give you reasons for doing things. That’s true about being a Jain, which means you belong to a particular Indian religious tradition.
