The War I Never Questioned

The Mercenary Behind Georg Meyer-Wiel’s Chained

“Chained” by Georg Meyer-Wiel

For most of my life, I didn’t realize I was at war.

There was no clear enemy. No dramatic beginning. No bell. It was quieter than that. It lived in adaptation, reinvention, and learning how to survive new environments, new expectations, new versions of myself. Strength became my language before I understood its cost.

I learned to move forward without pausing. To rebuild quickly. To hold my shape even when things inside me weren’t stable. Over time, fighting stopped being something I did - it became part of my identity. I didn’t call it tension. I called it drive. Discipline. Ambition.

from Uncovered Chapter II. Mercenary

That’s how The Mercenary was born.
Not as fantasy. Not as story. As survival.

The Mercenary makes decisions fast. He doesn’t hesitate when things are unclear. He doesn’t fall apart under pressure - he adjusts. When relationships ended, when loneliness lasted longer than I expected, when I felt unseen or unstable, he stepped forward. He protected me and kept me moving. He doesn’t sit in emotion. He turns pain into action - work, control, training, progress. From the outside, that looks strong. And in many ways, it was. But…

…protection that never turns off becomes constant alertness. Even in calm moments, part of me stayed ready.

from Uncovered Chapter II. Mercenary

Slightly braced. Not fear - readiness. A quiet belief that something could change at any time. Living like that doesn’t break you right away. It wears you down slowly. I wasn’t falling apart. I was functioning. Building my body, my career, my image. I was admired. Desired. Capable. But under all that control, there was tension I didn’t admit. I didn’t want chaos. I wanted relief.

That’s how drugs entered my life. Not as rebellion or destruction, but as permission to soften for a few hours. To quiet the constant scanning. To stop managing everything. To feel light instead of prepared. It felt temporary. Controlled. The Mercenary believed he was choosing it. But repetition changes things.

Relief became habit. Habit became pattern.

The same nights. The same excuses. The same quiet recovery after. What started as release slowly became something I depended on. That’s when I saw the chain.

from Uncovered Chapter II. Mercenary

Georg’s print Chained captures this part of the story in a way words struggle to…

The bodies are strong, but the strength isn’t celebrated - it’s heavy. The figures feel caught mid-motion, like they’re moving and still not going anywhere. The ink sits thick, almost like bruising. And the white of the paper doesn’t feel like background - it feels like the only clean air left in the room. That contrast stays with me.

Because the war was never only external. It wasn’t just cities, relationships, reinvention, or survival. It was internal pressure - the constant need to stay ready, stay sharp, stay controlled. In Chained, you can feel that pressure in the way the bodies hold themselves: power that looks like freedom from the outside, but feels like containment from the inside.

When I look at this piece, I see The Mercenary still standing - still functioning, still capable - but trapped inside the same system that once kept him safe.

The war built him. The relief sustained him.

The repetition exposed him.

For a long time, I treated endurance like a skill to perfect. Move faster. Recover faster. Feel less. Control more. Stay unbreakable. But Chained doesn’t let that identity stay heroic. It shows what happens when strength becomes the only language you trust. When control becomes a substitute for peace. When the body keeps performing power while the inside slowly gets tired.

Peace, I’m learning, isn’t weakness. It’s strength that doesn’t need to defend itself. It’s sitting still without feeling like something bad is about to happen. When the war becomes quiet, silence feels unfamiliar. Without constant movement, I meet myself without strategy -without The Mercenary leading.

I don’t regret the part of me that survived. The Mercenary was necessary. But he was never meant to be permanent.

That’s why Chained matters to me. It doesn’t only represent captivity. It represents recognition - the moment you see the pattern clearly and stop calling it strength just because it looks strong. I fought for most of my life without questioning the war. Now I do. And what I’m discovering is simple:

from Uncovered Chapter II. Mercenary

I don’t have to stay chained to the identity that once protected me. I can choose to live without armor - and still be strong...

UNCOVERED WITH PRINT SET "FIVE LAYERS OF FLASH" BY GEORG MEYER-WIEL

PRINT SET COMPRISES FIVE FINE ART PRINTS, EACH MEASURING 9½” × 11¾” | 24 × 30 CM.

PRINTED ON ARCHIVAL PAPER, EACH PRINT IS SIGNED AND NUMBERED BY THE ARTIST.

THE EDITION IS LIMITED TO 50 COMPLETE SETS.