Changing the wheel
I sit by the roadside
The driver changes the wheel.
I do not like the place I have come from.
I do not like the place I am going to.
Why with impatience do I
Watch him changing the wheel?
(Bertolt Brecht)
About the author
Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) was a German poet, playwright and theatre director who changed the course of 20th-century drama. He created “epic theatre,” a style designed to provoke critical thinking rather than emotional catharsis in audiences. His most celebrated plays include The Threepenny Opera, Mother Courage and Her Children, and The Caucasian Chalk Circle.
Brecht wrote “Changing the Wheel” (originally Der Radwechsel) in 1953, during his later years in East Germany. After spending years in exile during World War II, fleeing Nazi Germany through Scandinavia and eventually to the United States, he returned to East Berlin in 1948. The poem reflects the political and personal tensions of his situation. He lived under a regime he could not fully endorse, yet he had left behind the capitalist West he also criticized.
The meaning of the poem
The standard reading of this poem centers on existential suspension. A traveler sits by the roadside, watching a driver repair a broken wheel. The traveler admits dissatisfaction with both origin and destination. Neither past nor future holds appeal. Yet despite this double rejection, the traveler watches with impatience, eager to continue toward a place they do not want to reach. Brecht forces readers to confront an uncomfortable truth. We often push forward not because we believe in where we are going, but because staying still feels unbearable.
The poem also carries political weight. Writing in 1953 East Germany, Brecht occupied an uneasy position between a past he rejected and a socialist state whose practices troubled him. The roadside becomes a metaphor for ideological suspension, caught between unsatisfying choices with nowhere to call home.
My reading emerges when I sit with the poem’s central question: “Why with impatience do I watch him changing the wheel?” If neither past nor future offers satisfaction, why not appreciate this unplanned pause? The roadside becomes the only honest place to be. The wheel is broken. Movement has stopped. For this brief window, the traveler exists outside the dissatisfying trajectory of their life. The impatience to resume the journey looks foolish when examined clearly. What exactly is the rush toward disappointment? (or to die)
This interpretation points toward mindfulness as an antidote to suffering. The past is gone, the future uncertain. Only this moment, sitting by the road, watching hands work on a wheel, exists with any certainty. Happiness waits in presence, not in arrival. Brecht’s poem becomes a quiet challenge. Stop rushing toward places you might not want to reach. Learn to appreciate the pauses life offers. The broken wheel is not an obstacle. It is an invitation.
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