The way of life
A path is not something within, it is a part of the environment. A path is a sequence of physical features or events that when traversed funnels the traveler towards a certain destination. Each step in fulfilling this sequence further cements and affirms the end of it.
Using this definition — each life consists of a body following a collection of paths; each life is an animal being directed to certain predictable ends by recurring environmental stimuli.
The longer one walks along a path, the more painful and horrifying it is to stray from it. A path is a prophecy that wants to be fulfilled. Different paths demand different properties of the travelers walking it; be it courage, genius, or weakness. To abandon a path one must overcome the very aspect of oneself that the path has required, honed, and developed throughout the journey.
And more importantly: one only discovers new paths by suffering in new environments. The path of solitude and isolation is a dark cul-de-sac, a purgatorial and harrowing trail worming its way to the cosmic cemetery where the superorganism disposes all of its waste.
All animals upon this trail are filled with resentment and toxicity, as most sick and dying things are, but they also have the greatest opportunity for self-overcoming and redemption. The hero becomes profound and redeemed only after being humbled by hardships. The myth of the hero requires a cathartic event to even exist, it is a condition of its existence.
In the countless dim, gritty, and forgotten millennia leading up to your creation; how many dark paths have been traversed and defeated as a condition of your existence? And now this same judgment have been passed upon you, you have been sentenced to life.