Openture

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."

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.

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.