We recently had the chance to connect with The EMA and have shared our conversation below.
Hi The, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy day to share your story, experiences and insights with our readers. Let’s jump right in with an interesting one: What’s more important to you—intelligence, energy, or integrity?
Integrity, not in the sense of a sort of morality, but more like structural integrity. When you aren’t just keeping your word, but actually being your word, to honor your word is to honor yourself; and, to dishonor it is to be an incomplete person. When you give your word to being intelligent or energetic, you will naturally do the things necessary to have the things that support that way of being, simply by maintaining the integrity of your word and restoring it should you ever fall short.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am The EMA, which stands for “Energy Masta Allah”. I’ve been known professionally as “Chris Wind” in art and music since I was around 14-yrs old, having worked alongside George Clinton/P-Funk and Wu-Tang. I received Knowledge of Self (Five Percent Nation) in 2019, and took the name Energy as a reflection of my past professional work as a Qigong and Tai Chi instructor. I’m currently finishing up work on my epic, The Leopard in the Mirror: Canticle of the Mutant Guardian, as I continue my community work with the Gifford Historical Museum and Cultural Center.
Thanks for sharing that. Would love to go back in time and hear about how your past might have impacted who you are today. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
The illusion of separation. If I’m leaning against a bookshelf, and that bookshelf is scraping paint off of the wall, the homeowner isn’t going to blame the bookshelf. Because we don’t see the air that’s displaced when we walk through a room, we don’t get that, regardless of how many air molecules had to bump into each other before one hits the wall, we still had an effect.
We measure the bonds with the people in our lives with the expectation of some kind of effect instead of being causal in the conversation of connection. You only hate your ex because something had to fill the chasm of significance you carved into your experience of them through love. You become a source of hate, thinking you can be multiple people in your life–one that hates the ex but loves the new Bae. That’s like throwing roses with one hand and doo-doo with the other, thinking the smell only points in one direction.
It isn’t the restoration of a bond that’s necessary, but a restoration of integrity surrounding who you want to be in the world. If the other person is so awful, what does that say about you as the person who used to place them at the center of your world? You can say you didn’t know who they were at the time or that you were young and naive, but that says more about your awareness and the necessity of maturity before choosing to share your heart exclusively with someone.
Completion resonates with completion. If two complete people come together, they understand that the bond was there before the meeting and will always remain in some form, even if they later choose not to spend their lives together. People don’t just evaporate; and even if they did, your molecules would still bump into theirs at some point.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
None will ever match losing my son. Ironically, I came out on the other side optimistic, because it’s extremely hard to imagine that there will be anything I can encounter in life that can make me hurt more than I did that day. Any lingering fear of death I may have had was replaced by a love for life and those who are still here with me.
I can say confidently that it wouldn’t have been possible to heal in that way had I not allowed myself to feel all of it while it was happening. When we delay pain and trauma, our minds tend to fill in the memory gaps and make it far worse.
To deny the pain of the loss is to deny yourself of one of the most impactful moments you will have with that person–the moment you really feel the weight of how much that person really impressed on every fiber of your being. If you remain present and allow yourself to take that in, you can still feel them no matter where they sail across the vast multiverse. You are yourself a cosmos within which a spot for their star will always remain.
Alright, so if you are open to it, let’s explore some philosophical questions that touch on your values and worldview. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
I can’t remember who said this long ago, but it had a huge impact on my thinking: We live in a country where A-students wind up working hard for C-students and dropouts. That says less about the value of intelligence and more about whether intelligence is a foundational truth or subject to adaptation. What’s “smart” today might be “dumb” tomorrow. We have 8 planets instead of 9 now, and T-Rex went from a lizard to a giant chicken. All it takes is a cultural shift for individual intelligence to be rendered obsolete.
We need to figure out what it means to “be” instead of settling for “being smart”. “Being smart” just about inevitably relies on making someone else seem stupid in the process. Entire wars are being fought over one guy trying to outsmart the other. Nukes are just bigger sticks in the hands of cavemen. A so-called “smarter” civilization would’ve stopped nukes before Nagasaki, and a halfway decent one would’ve stopped after Nagasaki. Yet, here we are; so perhaps hearts, not “smarts”, are the solution.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What is the story you hope people tell about you when you’re gone?
Hopefully the story I just finished writing! It’s a classic style epic poem based on my spiritual journey through life. The hope is to contextualize African and African American culture within the canon of the medium. More importantly, I see it being a powerful step toward a Renaissance in the thinking of Americans that will transform the role we play in the world, becoming a nation of compassionate Enlighteners.
