People keep insisting on making a fool of themselves by proclaiming that Matrix Reloaded is not philosophical. Bollocks. But what i come here to say to you today is that Reloaded has one of the best examples ever of two opposed basic ways to live life: Smith and Keymaker.
Ex-agent Smith is an adder: one Smith can’t beat Neo, add another one, and if that is not enough add a dozen and just keep on getting — “More!”
The Keymaker, on the other hand, doesn’t even try to be strong or scary, he just keeps away from the path of trouble, and he stubbornly keeps on believing that there is — “always another way!”
It is plainly impossible to say which one is right, as they are not symbols of values but of strategies.
Even saying that for each situation one of them is better already implies siding with Smith, because to compare outcomes you would have to choose a way to quantify them and, thus, you create a point of view where the more the better. (Sorry, i know i didn’t explain that very well but i must move on.)
You can however make a choice and if you, personally, don’t choose the Keymaker i don’t feel like we have anything to share, really.
But the thing is that, really, no one wants to be Smith. Smith himself, by the way, just became what he is in the second movie because Neo corrupted his code. In the same vein, it is easy to inadvertently become Smith ourselves when (and that is just one of many examples) when we want to compare Smith to Keymaker and the comparation itself makes us slip to his side.
Truth of the Lesser Men 