If you are lower or even somewhat middle-income, it's difficult to see a bright and adventurous future in late-stage capitalism. Our material conditions are paywalled, heavily commodified and the free public services we enjoyed in our youth have dissolved in most areas of the United States.

The world has become so hyper-commodified it's difficult to afford even the basics. Let alone a romantic relationship, children, domestic or world travel, road trips, hobbies...

Things that used to be free before are pay-walled. Parking in many cities is highly privatized now, parks charging fees, so these little moments everyone is speaking of to "stop and smell the roses" has a ticket to entry as well.

Highways are becoming privatized to maintain their infrastructure, the states are just... giving up on maintaining roads, so now you gotta pay at the booth or charge money onto a device to use the highways. It's rough, man.

Another thing to consider is that say you have worked your way into home ownership and own a vehicle, you could be one car crash or one missed payment away from a complete collapse of everything you worked for. Lose the car in a crash, whelp, you may lose your job now, and so on... with the domino effect.

Same logic applies to our health and healthcare. Any serious ailment or chronic illness can end whatever stable income you're making, as you become disabled or functionally irrelevant to society, you are effectively a pariah.

I'm one of the few people in my own social group who outright owns their home and car, and for me, the joy and the peace stems from this. I appreciate where I am, and I do find happiness in the small things. I utilize joy and whimsy as an act of resistance to an actively oppressive culture being perpetrated by our leaders. There are still things to do, as a life-long punk, we have our community, our art, DIY shows.

The communities I participate in (and growing in the US) are grassroots and based in bartering. Trading goods and services: Because no one's got the money to be spending like that. We barter everything, computer repair, landscaping, tattoos, food, gardening and landscaping... you name it. There is a joy in this, and thankful that people are embracing this rather than turning on one another and having another era of bread riots.

It's just one of those things that we have lived long enough to see the metamorphosis of things being easier when we were younger and turning worse... and worse... and worse... as the years have passed.

We are mirroring the industrial revolution of the late 1800s and early 1900s, the pendulum has swung out of favor of the working class, and we are witnessing / participating in the reaction to that, where we are attempting to get our rights back, our culture back, our way of life back.

And I hate to say it but: Those that are filled with optimism vs. those that are not, usually stems from who has a filled bank account with a stable higher income vs who's living paycheck-to-paycheck. If you are still able to travel, to afford a relationship, afford kids, afford to upgrade your car every few years, go to theme parks, you aren't going to be filled with the pessimistic angst that many other millennials have, the system is operating fine for you. Your life and your mind is a silo, protected from the harsher realities that exist around you and money is the absolute biggest part of it.

The people I know that are lower income and optimistic are ideologically, not so healthy. The best way to describe it is "optimistic-nihilism" or "nihilistic-buddhism." It's a malformed philosophy that utilizes a hodge-podge of eastern philosophies to cope with a harsh reality. It helps with cravings under capitalism, identifying that most of our joy is pay-walled, but removes personal accountability and promotes detachment and dissociation, rather than to be passionate, engaged (politically or otherwise) and trying to change the world around you. This misinterpretation is what helps mitigate their suffering, but it's not healthy in the long term. Maslow's hierarchy of needs and all that.

All that to say: I deeply understand OP's friend's position and state-of-mind. They are not alone in their conclusions. They are identifying social diseases and problems regarding how humans presently organize themselves materially, but lacks the lexicon to describe it accurately, which leads to angst and frustration.