openture

Blend of open +‎ closure

openture (uncountable)

1. Refraining from seeking a resolution or ending for an emotionally difficult experience.
   • 2005 October 1, Daniel Eagan, “Finding Serenity”, in Film Journal International:

     Still, the writer and director jokingly cautions that Serenity is not the start of a trilogy. “If I never got to shoot anything of Serenity again, I would still feel that I had told my story and I had given the actors what they needed and the fans what they needed and myself what I needed. There is closure here. But having killed Buffy twice, I’m also a great proponent of openture."

   • 2007 October 17, Paul Pearsall, “Awe”, in Health Communications:

     If you choose a life of awe, you will surrender the solace of certitude. You will live with more openture than closure and, unless you can learn to find a strange, exciting comfort in being presented with and grappling with the tremendous mysteries life offers, you will seldom feel calm or at ease for very long.

   • 2012, Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote, Happiness for People Who Can't Stand Positive Thinking, →ISBN:

     To use an old cliché of therapy-speak, we spend too much of our lives seeking “closure”….What we need more of, instead, is what the psychologist Paul Pearsall called openture. Yes, it’s an awkward neologism; but its very awkwardness is a reminder of the spirit that it expresses, which includes embracing imperfection, and easing up on the search for neat solutions.

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