Hey, this is Outside In, a show where curiosity and the natural world collide.

I'm Nate Hedgy.

There's a saying out there that goes like this.

There are two kinds of people in the world.

The ones who think there are two kinds of people in the world, and then the ones who know better.

Anyway, perhaps one of the easiest and most common ways of dividing up the world is this.

There are city people and country people.

Sometimes these are labels that we adopt ourselves.

I'm more of like a country, rural mountain boy, if I'm being honest.

And sometimes these are labels that we use to describe others.

This divide is even the basis of an ancient children's story.

Town Mouse, Country Mouse, from Aesop's Fables, literally thousands of years old.

But some people live with a foot in both worlds.

All right.

My name is Kias A. Laman.

I'm a writer born and raised in Jackson, Mississippi.

Jackson isn't a massive city, but the metropolitan area is home to 20% of the state's

entire population.

And to someone growing up in that part of Mississippi, it was big.

Did you think of yourself as a city kid growing up?

That's our producer, Justine Paradise.

I love that question.

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