Creativity Under Fire: Tap A Steady Dose Of Transcendence Through Improv
A Ukrainian writer I follow on Blue Sky — Yaroslava Antipina @strategywoman.bsky.social —writes a “diary from Kyiv,” a daily reminder of resilience and creativity in the face of constant crisis and threat, with many posts that include a painting by a Ukrainian artist. On New Year’s Eve she posted “They attack us with missiles in the morning. We go to bookstores in the afternoon. Yes, I visited one of my favorite bookstores in Kyiv (they serve coffee, right).” When I feel too world-weary or blocked by the weight of self-doubt in my creative work, her posts and essays remind me that the creative process is for exactly this: getting through war-torn times, desperate hours, life under fire, attacks from the world around us and within ourselves. Creative energy is fuel for efforts that may or may not transcend the pain and challenges we face, but the process of trying will take us further than we ever thought we could go, and stretch the limits of reason in ways that surprise and delight our imagination. That can be rewarding enough. But what if it is also mixed with fun? What if we can produce a steady dose of transcendence that bolsters the creative courage we need?
Life can be weird or terrifying beyond our capacity to reason. We can be dropped into an unknown world without warning. Creativity is the energy we need to face and wrangle with the messy unknown. The creative act strengthens the psychological “muscle” we need to make something fresh and useful when things are dark and worse than we imagined. It is the most powerful force we have to gain mastery over the moment, and through finding agency in that moment, continue the fight.
The creative process through improvisation is one of the most direct pathways to this creative capacity. To improvise we embrace uncertainty and unpredictable discovery to go beyond what is known, both within ourselves and in the story or scene emerging. This is inherently risky, but it is a risk without actual danger. It is an opportunity to practice transcending our inner conflicts and self-negativity by taking the best care of everyone else in our field of play.
To tap creativity we need to be open and willing to take these risks. We can start anywhere. We can start exactly where we are and how we are. A study published in Thinking Skills and Creativity found a direct connection between personal authenticity — being open to our true self and aware of our authentic voice — and creative potential at home and work. An authentic mindset can be learned and cultivated no matter how much internal programming we must overcome to realize it. It advances creative thinking by going through, rather than around, the self-protective defenses that block, edit, and censor our ideas and shape our sense of self based on our attackers both past and present.
As an example, one fundamental, introductory improv exercise demonstrates the revolutionary way of thinking it trains us to practice:
Players stand in a circle.
Player 1 “shapes” empty space until it becomes something recognizable, which they then use — e.g. the shape becomes a flute that they hold to the side and “play” by moving their fingers like a flute player, or it becomes a bowl that they proceed to “eat” from — and give to the player to their right, who accepts and validates understanding by using the imaginary item as demonstrated by the person who made it. Then player #2 plays with that imaginary item’s shape until it takes a new form. A new item is demonstrated and passed to player #3. As each player accepts the imaginary item offered to them, and then reshapes it to become something else for the next person, they practice taking and giving focus, which can be as anxiety-producing as the demand to create something, even if there are no expectations for what should be. Some players can do this without pre — planning what they will shape the energy to be, some will find that harder than they had thought. Whatever happens is ok, as long as everyone is kind and respectful to their partners.
This improv exercise demonstrates an unconventional pathway through uncertainty. Our cognitive mind tries to give shape to reality when we are faced with the messy unknown. It does this with predictions about outcomes and scripting responses. These preparations make us feel safer, but they are not, in reality, more effective. In a new moment, in a new reality, we need a new approach. With improv and a creative mindset, we may experience transcendence on that new path. And we may find that inspires more of these creative explorations in hopes we can experience it again.
Authenticity means being honest about the truths we trip over about ourselves. Our secret selfishness. Our jealousy. The love we keep hidden out of fear of rejection. The power we subdue out of fear of being too much. The creative approach to our flaws and failings renders them not just parts of who we are but valuable windows into the complexity of being human.
Improv that is both fun and fascinating to do and riveting to watch hinges on authenticity that embraces and plays with our human imperfections.
When the struggle is real and we lean into it, transcendence is earned. The reward is a sense of expansion that makes us more willing to try again, to go further, to be more brave.
Improv is an act of creative courage. The immediacy of improv makes it unique in its transformative potential. In every other art form, the creative process leads to a completed piece: a symphony, a lyric, a poem, a sculpture, a book. Something tangible emerges with every other art form, and we know when it is complete. In science, the process leads to discoveries that change the way we understand nature and the universe. In business creativity drives innovation.
With improv, the only tangible outcome, or product, is the impact of the experience on the people involved.
Every new game or scene is new. The creative process happens only once in real-time and is gone forever. What endures is the impact: the ways the experience changes the people involved in the interaction. And the further we go with self-development through improv, the more enduring the changes. Old defenses no longer apply in this new way of relating. They can try, and of course we can fall into deeply-ingrained patterns. We are vulnerable to all of that, all of the time. That is why seeking transcendence through the creative process is an act of self-preservation. It is an act of faith that change is possible. Sometimes the immediacy of that act will heal an ancient wound. Sometimes it will get us through the present moment with enough spontaneity to respond more effectively and find meaning in it.
If people under fire in Kyiv can go from being bombed in the morning to a bookstore for coffee in the afternoon and engage with life and hope through art while under attack, maybe it is transcendence that gets us through adversity, not the prize we get at the end of it. Start anywhere. Start now.
