Have you seen the movie “Watchmen” yet? If you’re a male between the ages of 18 and 32, I imagine you have. This movie is to that demographic what Twilight was for prepubescent girls.

But I digress.

Personally, I’m not a huge fan. In fact, I didn’t really like the movie as much as I wanted to like it. Still, I feel it’s definitely worthwhile — if nothing else — for some truly amazing quotes. Quotes that make you think. Let me show you my favorite, courtesy of the — admittedly overly condemning — character Rorschach:

“The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout, ‘Save us!’ And I’ll whisper: ‘No.’”

Now generally, I’m an optimistic person. I try not to let things get to me, and I try to anticipate the future, not fear it. But lately, things have got me feeling more and more like I’m the sort of person who will be told “no.” Or, even worse, I’ll be the one who — after bearing witness to so much misery — will say it.

Scroll through the online news stories hosted by CNN, FOX and the like, and haunting images may find their way seeping, oozing deep beyond one’s eyes and collecting — stagnating, in some dark corner of the mind. They accumulate and fester, never really going away, even when we’re not thinking about them.

Five stories about murder. Two stories about rape. Three about war. Two about the economy. What kind of apocalyptic math are we conducting in this world today, I wonder?

We have a fascination with death and destruction, it seems. Our vision is finite, focusing on the end to come or the past we’ve lost, not on the future we could have.

I see this attitude in myself, in my friends, in my family. I see it everywhere we go: foreclosures, rape, poverty, violence, dogmatic adherence to Side A or Side B, ignoring the what or why.

But maybe I’m wrong. So I put it to students, asking: “Do you think the world will ever be a better, decent place to live?” The answers, to say the least, surprised me.

“I always hope so. I don’t know that there’s any concrete evidence, but I have faith that as our generation grows into the people in charge, we’ll bring an understanding and compassion with us that will help make things better.” — Carrie Taylor, junior in performing arts.

“Oh yes, of course. For all the darkness there is a greater amount of light that people can look to.” — Mike Aguilar, sophomore in psychology.

“Whether I personally believe this not only can, but will be done, I will make no predictions. It is my hope, though.” — Elnora Turner, junior at the University of the Arts.

Two people even turned the question around and put me on the spot, confronting my optimism turned pessimism:

“Your question implies that I think the world is not currently a decent place to live. I don’t think the world is going to change per se, but I do think an individual can come to terms with the world as it is and somehow make it a decent place for him or her to inhabit.” — Mat Wymore, senior in performing arts.

“The world won’t ever get better if we condemn it.” — Lindsay Allen, junior in performing arts.

I realized then I had swayed and tainted my question towards pessimism and I hadn’t even meant to.

Of course people are going to think poorly of the world when the negative is all we focus on.

Of course there will be thoughts of a dystopian future instead of utopian one if we can’t see the goodness already here.

There isn’t any national news with headlines: “Boy loves girl with all his heart” or

“Friends share a lovely meal together.”

No one’s coming to interview us about the long nights spent laughing about our lives so hard we blow embarrassing snot bubbles.

But those nights exist. Those flames of romance still sparkle in the dark abyss of night, shooting warm embers of hope spiraling high into the cold and frigid air.

So maybe, just maybe, the world isn’t such a terrible place.

Are there problems? Undoubtedly. But there are also solutions, and a future to claim.

And besides, Watchmen was just a movie.

— Sophie Prell is a junior in pre-journalism and mass communication from Alta.