I adopted the metaphor which works for me here from Ken Wilber, though I'm sure that the idea appears in the works of other writers, and much earlier: hierarchies of growth vs hierarchies of domination. The former (your "one hand") are nested hierarchies (inclusive); the latter (your "other hand") are conventional hierarchies (exclusive). The way I understand this is that "I am nothing" puts the "I" - whatever it is - at a leaf node if the reference is an exclusive hierarchy (a "hierarchy of domination"), whereas if the reference is an inclusive hierarchy (a "hierarchy of growth"), "I am nothing" appears at the root node.

Edit: typos.