Great works of art make one feel beauty. Is feeling beauty a spiritual event?
I do not know what one may mean by spirituality. Perhaps they regard spirituality in the religious sense, such as a belief in a god and that he will take care of them. However I consider spirituality to be something intrinsic in all human being and quite detached from religion.
Much as intellectual stimulation is the food of the brain so too beauty is the food of the heart and I believe it is in the heart where spirituality, as I see such term, reigns.
If spirituality is what I see it to be, then your argument seems to be flawed as you consider spirituality to be detached from the material world.
I do not see how one can distinguish easily the material world from the spiritual one. If the act of helping out a poor person is considered to be spiritual, such act is still carried out in the material world. It is a material act as you are helping him with material things. Same argument can be used when helping an old lady pass the road. So too the act of feeling beauty is experienced in the material world however the act itself is spiritual. For some even making a difference in the material world is a spiritual act and certainly love is spiritual however facilitated through the material world.
Then pity me, though I wish you wouldn't. I do not find that I can believe in any world other than the material world, at least enough to sacrifice my efforts in this world.
If I am going to make a difference, I want to make a difference in the material world, not a spiritual one. If I am going to become wealthy, I want to do so in the material world. If I am going to produce art, I would do so in the material world.
Any spirituality that I do have, exists in the material world. I work in this world, I trade in this world, I appreciate in this world, I love in this world.
So what's so wrong with that?
And if my goals in this world demand that I create money, and if I pursue that goal aggressively, why would you pity me?
Your friend wants able means. Even if he doesn't know now what he would do with those means, it is enough for him to know that he wants them. He is already leagues ahead of the aimless majority that do not know at all what they want. If he wants money, then he should pursue that, and once he has it, he can decide what to do with it ... but at least he will have pursued and attained a goal, which is a claim shared by too few.
I think your pity is misplaced.