This isn’t a project. It’s a place. A space where thoughts meet without asking for permission. Not a showroom, but a workshop – where ideas get dirty, scratched, and sometimes laughed at.

This voice comes from the Ruhr region – Germany’s industrial heartland, where people mix hard work with dry humor and don’t take themselves too seriously. Thinking here isn’t polished or academic. It’s direct, sometimes rough, often funny – and always human.

I write not as an expert, but as an observer. Maybe a court jester. Someone who believes that the best way to survive overwhelming times is to laugh, question, and reclaim your own mind. If you’re looking for perfect answers, this isn’t your place. But if you’re looking for a companion in your confusion – welcome.

These pages and articles revolve around two playfully introduced ISO language codes – a kind of “Request for Comments”:

• de-DE-Ruhrgebiet – the language of the Ruhr area
• en-US-PlainText – the attempt to internationalize it

Plain talk – not to simplify, but to respect.

Some of these thoughts may resonate more in cultures that value reflection over hierarchy. If you come from a place where questioning questions is frowned upon – take what feels safe, and leave the rest.

The goal here is reflection. Not rebellion.

The question: Can you carry the humor, the language, the diversity of the Ruhrgebiet into English — without losing something? Not as translation. But as transmission. Of stance. Of tone. Of what lives between the lines.

Because the humor here isn’t just funny. It’s grounded. It carries history. It knows contradiction. And the language? It’s not smooth. It has edges. It has rhythm. It doesn’t say “Let me explain something.” It says “Sit down, I’ve got a story for you.”

The experiment is: Can you pour that into “English plain talk” — so it doesn’t sound like a German punchline over there, but like an invitation to think along? Can you show that philosophy can come from canteens¹⁾ — and from a sentence that’s dry, but hits?

The author of this page believes: Yes, it’s possible. But only if you don’t try to make everything the same. Only if you allow plain talk to speak many languages — as long as it carries stance. And a grin that knows where it comes from.

These pages aren’t a blog, a manifesto, or a loudspeaker. They’re a space — for thoughts that don’t announce themselves, but simply show up. If you’re reading here, you’re doing it voluntarily. If you understand something, it’s by your own drive. No coaching. No course. No noise. No self-optimization. And definitely no singing bowls — unless you genuinely enjoy them for traditional or religious reasons.

The topics? They’re not chosen. They insist. They come from observation, friction, and the wish to not just name things — but to think them through. Not loud. Not fast. Not strategic. But coherent. Rational and emotional in balance.

This isn’t a place that explains what “the truth” is. But it tries to get closer — with language, structure, and stance. No claim to completeness. But a commitment to not look away. These aren’t answers. They’re attempts — to make complexity understandable without flattening it. If you’re reading here, you’re not being led. But maybe accompanied. Because thinking isn’t a product. It’s a process — and sometimes a quiet resistance against what’s become too loud.

The Ruhrgebiet doesn’t offer doctrine. It doesn’t come from books, but from encounter. From shared work, from argument, from living together — and from a humor that doesn’t ask if you’re right, but if you can laugh along. People from all over the world have lived here — for generations. Diversity isn’t decoration. It’s everyday life. And everyday life isn’t smooth. It’s full of friction. But that’s where something emerges: a kind of wisdom that doesn’t impose itself, but stays. The humor here? It’s not nice. It’s honest. It comes from coal dust, warm steel, from canteens, from pubs — and sometimes from a sentence so dry you only realize later how deep it goes.

These pages and publications try to capture some of that. Not to explain it. Not to market it. But to show how thinking can sound — when it comes from diversity, and from a region where plain talk is more than a style.