openture
n. The tendency to not seek a resolution or ending for an emotionally difficult experience.
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Etymology
Examples
2012
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.
—Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote, Faber & Faber, November 13, 2012
2007
If you choose a life of awe, you will surrender the solace of certitude. You will live with more 'open-ture' 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.
—Paul Pearsall, “Awe,” Health Communications, September 17, 2007
2005 (earliest)
Still, the writer and director [Joss Whedon] 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.'"
—Daniel Eagan, “Finding Serenity,” Film Journal International, September 01, 2005
Notes
The first citation describes "openture" as an "awkward neologism" (what I call an awkword), and that it is. It's also awkward etymologically, since closure is essentially a blend of close and the suffix -ure (used to denote an action or process), so by analogy openture must be opent + -ure. Opent? Let the scratching of the heads begin.
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