We imagine that we want to escape our selfish and commonplace existence, but we cling desperately to our chains.

The line contrasts a professed desire for liberation with the psychological comfort of habit. “Selfish and commonplace existence” suggests a life narrowed by routine, self-concern, and conventional expectations; “chains” implies that these limits are partly self-forged. The quote points to a common human contradiction: we fantasize about transformation—moral, spiritual, or social—yet resist the discomfort and responsibility that real change requires. Read this way, it is less a condemnation than a diagnosis of inertia: freedom is not only blocked by external constraints but also by our attachment to familiar identities and patterns, even when they diminish us.