Why This App Designer Hides His Face | An Old-World Cure Built as a New-World App

John Heers sits down with "Justin Smith" — an anonymous app designer you'll never see, only hear.His app, This Life, is audio-only and anonymous by design: you record your own voice, then get paired with a stranger for a day to hear three minutes of their life.In this episode John pushes back hard — is a phone app really the cure for the isolation it helped create? Is writing down your thoughts making us more ill, not less? And where does the whole thing come from — what's the "well" underneath it?They go deep on:→ Why Justin hides his face (and the Bill Wilson / AA logic behind it)→ The "force of unhelpful negative emotion" and how it plays us all→ Spiritual hitchhiking — the app's one-day anonymous pairing→ Whether an app can ever replace the in-person Supra table→ Christianity, Orthodoxy, and building something beautiful out of love for a fatherA fascinating, honest conversation about what we've lost in the modern world — and one man's attempt to build a piece of it back.Get the app 👇

http://www.jointhislife.com

orhttps://apps.apple.com/us/app/this-li...Chapters00:00 Intro & Sponsors02:19 Meet "Justin Smith" — The Anonymous App Designer02:45 Why He Hides His Face (The Bill Wilson Logic)06:14 The Problem: The Human Heart at War With Itself08:24 The Force of Unhelpful Negative Emotion10:42 Watching His Father Break19:14 How the App Works22:05 Spoken Notes & Spiritual Hitchhiking25:30 Is Writing It Down Making Us Sicker?28:38 Orthodoxy, Christianity & "the Well"42:38 Why Digital? The Trade-Offs45:07 The Demon & the Puppet Strings01:05:07 Get the App & Closing Thoughts__🏷️ Sponsored by Conrad's Beef Jerky — loyalty not guaranteed.Conrad's Deli - The best jerky you'll ever have ➜

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⭐ Use promo code "FIRST THINGS" for 10% off.🔥 Support First Things Foundation field workers like Sarah (featured in this episode):

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✈ Become a Field Worker with FTF: https://first-things.org/opportunities📢 First Things Telegram: https://t.me/firstthingsfoundation🍷The best dinner party you've ever experienced - Supra Dinner Society:

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ⓧ https://x.com/johnfromftf🏖️ Tailormade tours that give back: https://www.gratitude-travels.com/hom__Credits Music: Intro / Outro Provided by Greg Gilbertson & Band