"Well now. Let me create a situation."
Lo Qi makes a sweep with his stick, and a great line is drawn down the middle of the garden. On one side of it, he starts to draw in many little stick figures of men.
"To my regret, I can never visit Zion. But say that I did."
He draws in a small boxy robot, akin to a child's toy, by the mass of men.
"And say, when visiting you all there, I came across you, Klez. And I point at you, and I asked: 'What is this man's purpose?" How would I be answered?"
"Of course they would," says Lo Qi. "They would tell me you were a soldier, much as they might idnetify a maintenance man, programmer, one of your ruling Council...
"Yet if you went to the oracle and asked her your purpose, and she said to you 'You are a solider, Klez,' would you not say back 'That's not what I meant'?"
"Actually, that's exactly what I would say back. When speaking with the Oracle, normally any one of our soldiers expects a deeper answer to the question, such as one that Neo might receive. The Oracle would tell him that he's the saviour of mankind, why shouldn't we be told that we're important as well?"
"Ah, interesting that you mention Neo. For your description of your purpose as a soldier would be equally true for him, I believe- for he is indeed a solider of Zion just as you, remarkable abilities or otherwise.
"But yet do you not think he has another purpose? One as the saviour of Mankind? You may call this description of purpose higher, or deeper, or greater. But I think it is inaccurate to say one overrides the other. Both are valid, but both are different uses of the word."
"Of course, we are not mindless robots only following orders. Zion exists to ensure our survival as free beings. Freedom is about defining yourself, making choices and sometimes seeking your purpose. Myself I am too young to be sure about everything, but I try to understand and learn as much as I can- people enslaved in Matrix usually not look past lies that are feed to them by the System."- Melkor responds to Lo Qi.
"Yet you don't need to seek your purpose as a soldier of Zion," says Lo Qi, "which is a perfectly adequate answer to the question of what your purpose is, and yet you still seek for the other meaning.
"You see, very often when you talk of 'purpose', when you apply the question to yourselves, you start to think of matters of destiny. But when you apply it to 'Machines', you only think about what we were built for, a purpose which is very valid as indeed we are all built to purpose; it is a vitally important thing in Machine society. But only in the use of the word that is the same as the use that defines you as soldiers of Zion. It is not necessarily the final word about what we are here to do, which is the other meaning."
He draws with his stick in the sand again, and on one side of the line is a single stick figure, and on the other is a heavng mass of stick figures, all moving around and past each other.
"So. I put it to you that there are two meanings of the word 'purpose'. The first," he says, indicating towards the mass of the right, "refers to our purpose within society. Solider. Cleaner. Leader. Or for the System, Agent, programmer, overseer. General.
"But the second," he says, indicating the lone figure, who seems to be climbing an endless staircase, "the kind of purpose you would go to the Oracle about, that you expect of one such as Neo, is your personal purpose, the effect you are going to have on the world. Your pirpose as an individual."