INSIDE AND OUTSIDE: Nature + Pop Culture News with Jessica Murnane · Jessica Murnane

How To Connect With Nature When You Don't Like Gardening + Dealing With Content Fatigue and Decreased Attention Spans with Ruby Warrington (author of Sober Curious and Women Without Kids)

·1 hr 11 min·4 clips

Ruby says her curiosity is also hypervigilance, and having all the information feels like safety.

Jessica Murnane starts with a simple question: how do you connect with nature if gardening is not your thing? She and Ruby Warrington stay with that question instead of forcing a one size fits all wellness answer. Ruby is a journalist and author whose work includes Sober Curious, Material Girl, Mystical World, The Numinous Astro Deck, Sober Curious Reset, and Women Without Kids. She is also writing a new book, and Jessica notes that it was due in three days when they recorded. The conversation treats nature as something broader than hiking or being in the woods. That opens up a more personal idea of access, taste, and habit. The two of them talk in a loose, conversational way that leaves room for side roads and lived in details. Then the episode turns toward content fatigue and attention span. Ruby talks about how the volume of material arriving through inboxes, phones, and notifications trains people to keep scanning and switching. That kind of switching makes long form reading feel harder than it used to. Jessica brings up the difference between reading on a screen and reading in print. Ruby says reading on a computer or phone feels like work, while print can feel more enjoyable, especially since she went on a content diet about a year and a half earlier. The conversation stays grounded in ordinary experience rather than abstract advice. It keeps returning to the idea that the right kind of nature connection can be small, personal, and unforced. It also treats focus as something shaped by the environment people live in, not just willpower. The tone is curious, warm, and a little messy in a way that fits the show. By the end, the episode feels like a conversation about how people pay attention, outside and inside, without pretending there is one correct way to do either.

As heard by us

A reflective conversation about nature and attention that treats both as personal habits.

Jessica Murnane opens from a simple premise: people do not need to love gardening, hiking, or the woods to feel connected to nature. Her conversation with Ruby Warrington, a journalist and author whose work includes Sober Curious and Women Without Kids, stays personal while…

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Why you'd press play

For when you want a nature conversation that never assumes you like gardening.

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