Thanks for the much needed perspective shift on "soft" and "hard" skills. The classification is relevant but the labels are outdated. They tend to subconsciously undermine the more important human capabilities, with associations of "soft" with flaky, weak, optional, and subordinate against something stronger, tangible, and solid.

Some have tried to argue along the lines of "soft skills are the new hard skills" but that is a lost battle. Your suggestion of permanent versus impermanent is a more useful way for us to understand them. Soft skills are permanent because they originate from our core biologically evolved behaviors, get molded through psychological development right from birth (actually even earlier), and are portable across domains, industries, cultures. Maybe we need to promote the use of "portable and locked-in skills" as well as "primary and secondary skills" as replacements to "soft and hard skills".