C. Thi Nguyen

speaker

3,183 appearances 5 recordings 5 series first heard Jan 2026 last heard 7 Jul

C. Thi Nguyen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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recordings per month · last 12 months

Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 5 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 2.

Appearances

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Two Percent with Michael Easter · #25: Why Numbers, Scores, and Metrics Make Life Worse | Thi Nguyen · 2 Jul 2026 podcast

I realize that I've been working so hard for so long that I can no longer tell when I'm sick because I've just learned to tune that out.

And I rely on my coworkers to tell me when I'm sick because I can no longer feel it.

And I think...

This is related to one of these things where this is the weird arc, this horseshoe.

It's so interesting to me that when I was completely untuned to my body, what I needed was a simple scoring system.

To tell me, to give me enough information to be able to tune in and feel pleasure in my body moving and also be able to tune in and tell that eating two pounds of cheesy pasta made me feel weird.

I needed the data.

But on the other end, there's a level of data fixation such that it just overwrites any sensations from your body or your happiness.

And you...

no longer seem to be able to steer by whether things make your life happier or make your body feel better.

And that's like the tragedy at the other end that, I don't know, it just seems like the worst thing and a thing I've done to myself like a hundred different times.

I am the weird kind of optimist about, well, romantic maybe.

I think games kind of give us an example.

I mean, what games are if you're playing them reflectively, if you're playing them in the striving way?

Is you try on a scoring system and then you step back and you ask yourself, is this what I really want to be doing?

You don't just, for most of us, play a game relentlessly.

You step back and ask if it's fulfilling to you.

And I think that is at least something we can try to carry over towards other things, but it's harder.

I mean, part of the difference.

I'm not going to just say it's just a flip you can switch.

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