I can relate to what 'kaŝperanto' posted. Distance between us is a problem. For many of us, Esperanto is simply a hobby. We may or may not belong to Esperanto-USA. I don't, although I sometimes purchase items from their website. We may not have the option of having a local club. So that leaves reading Esperanto articles/books, using the internet, and email. So... collecting data as to how many of us are around is pretty much impossible.

The U. S. is a huge country and many of us prefer to live in rural areas if we can. And for those living the country life, we often have to rely on satellite for both TV and internet service. Not only is satellite internet service more expensive but there are bandwidth and latency problems associated with it. In other words, it doesn't work well with skype since there is a delay in the signal traveling from earth to satellite to earth. Another option is wireless MIFI service which functions more like cellphone service. But I don't know if it can be used with skype.

Speaking only for myself, I simply enjoy the language. I don't have any ideological inclinations in relation to Esperanto and I most definitely DO NOT think that learning Esperanto is going to lead to world peace or Utopia on earth, so I suppose that makes me a "Raumist." I enjoy the Lernu website but I don't contribute much. Why? Because I lean more towards the "serious" than the "trivial" in my Esperanto activities. Because while Lernu has a lot of good learning material, and its forum is excellent, too many of its members are young and lean toward being "dilettantes" (i.e., they are simply dabblers in a particular subject). They come and go. Their interest in Esperanto appears to be superficial. They prefer playing games than learning how to use Esperanto.

I am older and more conservative and have a tendency to say what I think. I don't "pussyfoot" around an issue and many people cannot handle that. Occasionally I do express myself bluntly in a post and "the silence is deafening." I think of conversation as being a sincere exchange of ideas. I'd much rather be honest and open than "cool" and "politically correct."

What would I like? I'd like to be one of a small group of serious minded individuals who exchange messages (ofte, eble ĉiutage) for the purpose of achieving better proficiency, then to occasional phone calls using Esperanto ("crocodiling" permitted ) -- sort of like sudanglo's translation exercises but on more everyday topics.

I occasionally see a comment on this forum that Esperanto isn't a language that one can use in everyday life. That's nonsense. It has the vocabulary to do anything we want to do in our daily life. We'd just have to understand that we need to keep slang and idioms to a minimum in order to keep our usage as universal as possible. Slang is code. Esperanto wasn't meant to be code.

Thus we could avoid the "eterna komencanto" issue.

I think that if you like it that could be enough motivation. I am sure you can find people who speak Esperanto in New York. This may be the place to find them. However, Esperanto is very alive in the web. For me Esperanto is a great linguistic tool which helps me develop my linguistic capabilities and I like it for that, among other reasons. Well, if you need somebody to interact in Esperanto, you can write to me. However, I am still learning the language.
Good luck!

apok2:I occasionally see a comment on this forum that Esperanto isn't a language that one can use in everyday life. That's nonsense. It has the vocabulary to do anything we want to do in our daily life. We'd just have to understand that we need to keep slang and idioms to a minimum in order to keep our usage as universal as possible. Slang is code. Esperanto wasn't meant to be code.

Thus we could avoid the "eterna komencanto" issue.

What do you mean by slang is code? All languages are a code, including Esperanto. I got lost here. Probably since English is not my native language, I cannot grasp your idea.

apok2:Speaking only for myself, I simply enjoy the language. I don't have any ideological inclinations in relation to Esperanto and I most definitely DO NOT think that learning Esperanto is going to lead to world peace or Utopia on earth, so I suppose that makes me a "Raumist." I enjoy the Lernu website but I don't contribute much. Why? Because I lean more towards the "serious" than the "trivial" in my Esperanto activities.

...

I am older and more conservative and have a tendency to say what I think. I don't "pussyfoot" around an issue and many people cannot handle that. Occasionally I do express myself bluntly in a post and "the silence is deafening." I think of conversation as being a sincere exchange of ideas. I'd much rather be honest and open than "cool" and "politically correct."

I'm not totally sure what you mean about serious versus trivial. I see lots of political discussions on lernu, as well as discussions on more trivial topics. It sounds like maybe you are looking for some like-minded friends, and this is a point that every Esperanto speaker reaches eventually, when they go to Esperanto events not specifically to "do Esperanto", but to see their Esperanto friends.

You might contact jkph00, you might find some things in common.

I don't really have a problem with deafening silence when you express an unpopular opinion, to be honest. It is better than everyone piling on to rudely tell you how wrong you are. What kind of reaction were you hoping for? I'm a left-winger myself but I have friends and Esperanto friends from a variety of political orientations, some of whom I think are not only wrong but completely crazy-misguided (both on the left and on the right, for what it's worth). I don't see a big problem with this either, we just stick to other topics when talking. Not every conversation has to be a knock-down drag-out fight about who is right on a controversial topic (...that neither person has any realistic chance of ever changing).

Your preference for being open and honest rather than "cool" is certainly a popular thing in the Esperanto community. I am sure that everyone who disagrees with you in the forums is also being open and honest with their opinions, rather than "cool". You seem perhaps to assume that people are saying things that they don't really think in an effort to be politically correct. I disagree with that, and I encourage you to take other user's posts at face value (i.e. they are saying these things because they honestly believe them, not because they are trying to be "cool" or politically correct. And last I checked, posting in an Esperanto forum was pretty much the last thing anyone would ever do to prove how cool they are. This applies to me too.).

There is an Esperanto office near the UN. Neil Blonstein is one of the aktivuloj there. I think that they are always looking for volunteers to man (woman?) the office. The publisher Mundial is in New York and they publish books in Esperanto. It seems that NYC is actually a blessed place for this in comparison with SE Florida, where I live. You might volunteer at the UN E office or look for a part-time job with Mundial. Let us know how it goes!

Thanks to everyone for the lively discussion. I will follow up with the suggestions and greatly appreciate the concrete options. I just KNEW there had to be people in NYC that used Eo in daily life, even if not daily, if that makes sense.

I just wanted to get an idea from people in the know of what things work and what things didn't.

apok2:You have aroused my curiosity, though. I wonder why you think I should contact jkph00? That was a retorical question. Let's consider this subject closed.

jkph00 is a really nice guy, from what I have seen on this forum. I don't know your age but you call yourself "older" and jkph00 is retired. He lives in West Virginia. I vaguely recall that he had some interest in practicing his Esperanto. He describes himself as a retired world traveler in his profile so it seems like if you want to talk about serious topics in Esperanto, with someone possibly in your age range (not always easy to find at lernu, which is dominated by the younger demographic), then he might be a good choice. It was a serious suggestion, sorry if it offended you.

Sorry if you took my post as hostile, it wasn't intended that way at all. I just wanted to encourage you not to write people off in these forums based on whatever they might post on a certain topic that you might disagree with. I agree people can be liberal or conservative in different ways, also because this is true for me myself (I'm liberal in basically everything secular but conservative in religion).

Incidentally, regarding people who join the site and then are active for a while and leave - I wouldn't be so quick to judge them as being dilettantes. Sometimes people disappear from the English forum and become active in the Esperanto forums. Some people use lernu for a while, then continue learning offline or with another course, so they disappear from lernu. Sometimes they run out of time for a while due to family obligations, work, or study, then come back later when they have more time. People have a limited number of hours in the day. When a user disappears, I would personally rather give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are busy with an unavoidable life circumstance, or that they're active elsewhere in Esperanto, rather than assuming they weren't serious about learning. I don't know the details of their life so I'd rather assume the best rather than the worst.

Thank you all. I am learning a lot of English in this, how you call it, thread?

Setting questions of US politics aside, it is however patently true that there is an over-preponderance of those of a left-wing disposition in the Esperanto movement. This is not at all healthy. We need those on the right as well.

I sometimes think that the characteristics of the language have been influenced by the excess of leftie mind-set with its abhorrence of discrimination and making distinctions.

And we need the right also from a practical point of view to initiate commercial exploitations of Esperanto and shake up the fossilised structure of many Esperanto organisations.

sudanglo:Setting questions of US politics aside, it is however patently true that there is an over-preponderance of those of a left-wing disposition in the Esperanto movement. This is not at all healthy. We need those on the right as well.

Unquestionably. I first learned of Esperanto at all (here in the USA) in 1961 and learned a little more about it in 1972. However, whatever my personal politics might be, I quickly got the idea that the "Esperanto movement" (whatever that might be) was a rather left wing phenomenon. Rightists not especially welcome.

Of course, as far as I can tell, that circumstance might have been abhorrent to Zamenhof, but, sadly, that seems to be the perception of many people (at least in these parts). Those of us who support the ideal of a constructed international auxiliary language (I am something of a Finvenkisto with respect to some language -- whether that conIAL be Esperanto or another!) must realize that if E-o/whatever be associated with right, left, middle, up, down, top, bottom, in, out, or whatever, it will probably die.