*I originally posted this at r/stonerphilosophy because I didn't quite know where to put it
It isn't a story about superhuman gifts, fate, or uncanny ability. As Morpheus says, "There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path."
Neo learns to bend the rules of the Matrix to profound levels by simply knowing it isn't real. So he just DOES everything. It's as if in his head, the entire time, he's just saying over and over, "I am going to do this. I am GOING to do this." Which is highlighted later in the raid scene after Neo and Trinity arm the elevator bomb, and they escape through the top hatch, with Neo calmly reaffirming, "There is no spoon." There's no room for doubt. Only pure clarity that whatever happens in the Matrix, isn't real whatsoever
So when he meets with the Oracle, and she pretends to inspect him, she's doing this because she knows he's still thinking in physical, tangible terms. He was stuck on thinking he, the specific man, was The One. She never says he doesn't have any ability, only that he isn't the fated one. She then goes on to explain that no matter what he, or even she says or does, it won't make Morpheus waiver in his belief, because he is certain beyond certainty that he had found The One. He never stopped believing it for a second. Morpheus had figured it out. It's so much more than breaking the rules of the system, or seeing beyond it.
Neo picks up on this back on the Nebuchadnezzar, when he realizes what Morpheus is doing and what the Oracle actually meant. He himself, in the real world, above the Matrix, finds resolve and absolute, unshaking confidence that he believes through and through, "I can bring him back." So right here, he starts to transcend and bridge the two worlds unknowingly.
From this point on, every choice he makes and every impossible feat, he does simply by having complete confidence and belief that he could. "I am going to cut through a small army." "I am going to dodge bullets." "I am going to catch a helicopter." And it's all because he knows this isn't real, but also just as much because he knows he can. He doesn't stop to question why he shouldn't be able to.
Upon saving Morpheus and speaking with him before he dials out, Neo goes to tell Morpheus what the Oracle had told him: how he isn't The One. But Morpheus stops him, saying she told him exactly what he needed to hear. Meaning whatever it was didn't matter, because you're doing it anyway. The difference between knowing the path, and walking the path.
Finally, after Agent Smith executes Neo, looking down and seeing the wound, feeling the pain, touching the blood, and otherwise experiencing everything that death comes with, he dies. Meanwhile in the surface world, Trinity calmly confesses to the real Neo, how she feels. What the Oracle told her. She kisses him, and tells him to get up. She knew they'd be okay because she loved a man who was prophesied to save them, but also because Morpheus calmly belayed the EMP blast, giving Neo all the time he'd need to wake up. She kisses him and tells him to get up. She's speaking to the real Neo. His real ears. Touching his real skin. Kissing his real lips. The irrefutable knowledge that his real body was somewhere else, perfectly fine and with people he trusts.
So Neo wakes up, both in the Matrix and in his mind. Because they're One. He was just gunned down, but he was gunned down in a place that doesn't exist at all. In this moment of perfect clarity and enlightenment, he displays complete mastery over The Matrix. Able to completely control physics and time, able to absorb and delete blocks of code and programming, and run unleashed in The Matrix.
Unfortunately time has run out in the real world, as the Neburchadnezzar is breached and invaded. Trinity calls it and pulls his plug while Morpheus blasts the EMP. It's implied that Neo barely makes it out in time, but I believe they actually did it before he dialed out. He wakes up anyway. What happened here is Neo saw so far through The Matrix and it's codes, laws, and programs, that upon being unplugged, he simply wakes up in his own body again. After all, that all only happened in his head anyway. He was there the whole time. He never wasn't. It's synonymous with his waking up in the tube in the farm. He was unplugged by something else, and began to realize that everything in there was fake.
He was finally unplugged and fished out of that mess by Trinity. In the end, she unplugged him and fished him out of the same mess again. Both times, a new man.
Neo is not the One because of fate or divinity. He's simply the one that does it. Anyone can. Morpheus did well before Neo, and kept on doing it. He broke his chains by pure strength because he knew he could. Trinity moved faster than an Agent and saved Neo without thinking, because she knew she could. She just didn't realize it. That's the only way she could've gotten the jump on that Agent after the bullet dodge scene.
Even all the symbology with food. It isn't bits of code getting downloaded unwittingly. They're symbols. The Oracle speaks to Neo and tells him he isn't the One. She tells him to take a cookie because he'll feel better after eating it. The cookie represents Neo's realization. It's a real cookie, all intents and purposes. It tastes sweet, it feels hard, it crunches, it chews and swallows, and even needed to be made by hand using smaller parts. Codes and programs, identifying the falseness of that world.
Cypher was actually closer than anybody else, except Morpheus, to figuring that out. He explains it perfectly while meeting with the Agent, who even smiles because he knows that Cypher skimmed the dangerous truth. His downfall was being unable to reconcile the two worlds, and not realizing the power that came with it inside The Matrix. He knew the path, he just didn't know he could walk it. He was beaten down by the muddy message of there being The One.
The reason Neo showed so much promise was because he'd been told he's special since the very beginning of the movie. The reason Cypher never achieved the same thing was because he was told he wasn't. They both just believed what they were told.
They knew their paths, and walked them.
Tl;Dr Neo wasn't the One because of fate. He was the One because he believed he could. Like Morpheus, he just does it. There is a difference between knowing the path, and walking the path. So whoever you are, just walk. Live it right now, and don't question how real or plausible it is. Don't do it because it'll be good for you or them, or even because you need it. Do it because you can. Know that you can.
You don't have to be the One to do it. You just have to be the one to DO IT.
Edit: bits and pieces