People by degrees

Calculus has the concept of derivatives and algebra has the concept of "powers" and geometry has the concept of dimensions, while we all have a sense of different levels of depth or complexity. In some sense all these concepts can be thought of as "degrees". If you take that analogy to the way people operate in the world, you can see different "degrees" of awareness or behavior or engagement from the different kinds of people.

0th degree people are primarily aware of or care about the way things are now. They don't care about how things got this way, or how things might change. They're neither optimistic nor pessimistic, but very accepting. 0 derivative people don't tend to be very empowered in their behavior and approach. But they might be great artists or observers of things, or very diligent workers. They might tend to be very complacent, able to be content under any circumstances, and they might even be seen as morally lacking because they might tend to have little opinion about whether their actions mean something good or evil in the world. They generally don't see change as something that's under their control. These people are most likely apolitical or antipolitical.

1st degree people are aware of things changing. They're aware that the current state of things came about from states immediately prior, and they are aware that things are headed somewhere in particular as a direct result of the way things are today. These people might experience change at any rate, ie. they sense things changing continually, but they're not so aware that there are in fact different speeds. People like this might be pessimistic or optimistic as a readily apparent attitude trait, but they might also swing between these two extremes depending on the situation. As such they might tend to be sentimentally nostalgic or persistently dissatisfied. Their level of empowerment is greater than the 0 derivative folks because they have a sense that they can contribute in the flow of change or resist it. These people do have a strong sense of good and bad, and might tend to be almost overly moralistic. These people tend to be on the far wings of political ideology, ie. far right or far left. They feel empowered, but are likely to overestimate their actual impact and typically lack the finesse and longer term vision required to carry through agendas. These people will probably view death as a surprising and sudden interruption of the way things go. In general they are likely to be surprised by things.

2nd degree people are aware that things change as a general rule, but that the flow of change is not a constant. These people have a sense of when things are gearing up or going into decline. They would tend to be empathic about the lives of living things from trees, to people, to cities, to the solar system. For example, they might find it important to consider that the sun will one day burn out taking out the earth with it, and would therefore take the time to research whether mankind is quickly enough developing the ability to avoid the potential catastrophe the sun's life cycle represents. These people are likely to be sensitive to the effect they or others have on a situation, such as "that person is a downer" or "that person inspires people". Similarly they are aware of the forces that are present in the world, energy sources, motivators, inhibitors. These people know that some moments are better than others for addressing a particular situation or pursuing a particular goal, so this means they also tend to develop a habit of keeping several different goals active or latent in their consideration at all times, working on the goals that will yield the most results at any given time.  2nd degree people are aware of cycles, but tend to think within each individual cycle, not over the span of multiple cycles. These people have a rich intuitive sense of experience. They feel the ebb of inspiration or the growing restlessness that will incite creative action. These people are politically pragmatic, but clearly opinionated, with the finesse to build bridges of understanding based on mutual experience. They are empowered to the extent of having agendas to pursue and can usually achieve objectives they set for themselves by exercising persistence, determination, and self-pacing as well as directed energy toward the goal.

3rd degree people see the repeating and complete cycles of change and expect cycles to be reliable and predictable within certain parameters. They are also aware of chaos and how it impacts those cycles. These people can tend to develop a "nothing new under the sun" syndrome if they're not careful, but they also will tend to see through the cycles and engage with the nature of things. These people build very complete internal models of the world, and can intuitively predict both long and short term occurrences in a general sense. They have a strong sense of strategy and how it differs from tactics. These people tend to come across as morally relativistic, and it may be unclear to most observers just what they believe in or what they are pursuing. But usually they are pursuing goals on many different levels simultaneously. For them achieving long term or large gains can be instigated with small carefully considered actions, which they are likely choosing on a conscious level at almost all times. These people definitely tend to be centrists politically, and will pursue ideals like harmony and liberty through relatively subtle means. These people sense their empowerment as a natural and emergent property of themselves. They are resilient but probably come across as less than passionate. Part of this is because they have a tendency to remain steadfast in the presence of the ups and downs of the cycles they are very aware of. They trust that things will come around and move on to develop further.

4th degree people are at one with the Tao. They experience life in progress in its (agnostically) incomprehensible complexity and yet clarity, and move as an integral part of it. They sense that everything they do affects the whole, and all of the whole is accessible to them, even through examining with sufficient care the smallest part of it. These people can summon passion when the time calls for it, but they can also proceed with what seems like no effort at all and still influence the outcomes they desire to see. They are either completely moral or completely amoral, which are almost the same thing in that duality becomes irrelevant and "it's all good".

I think this is really more of a continuum than a group of quantum states, but there may be a stepwise statelike aspect to it. Or in some areas a person might be one degree, and in other areas they might operate with a different degree. I'd say generally that higher degree folks can access lower degree levels of thought, but the reverse is less likely the case. Though to some extent greater complexity and organization of thought (intelligence) is required to operate at the higher degrees, it makes sense that some people by choice or by circumstance might operate at lower degrees than they might have capacity for. Simple example: if I'm super tired today, it's probably better I don't think too much about where things are headed, and instead try to focus strictly on the now, ie. operate primarily in  the 0th degree as a matter of good practice. In many ways the 0th degree looks and feels like the 4th in the holism, nonduality and stillness which becomes evident. I do think that given the capacity, exploring into higher degrees is a positive thing for a person.

And this is the subject of my "Russian Doll" story which only has the first half of the first phase written thus far....