What do you say to your audiophile friends who say you just listen to your equipment more

When my system succeeds in releasing the music, that's all I hear - the system disappears. 

I like listening to how my equipment plays my music (finally).

However, more listen to my system. How do I know?
Because I don't listen to full songs.
Skip to another to hear how it sounds...

I tell them I’m blessed to have good equipment and the joy of hearing good music playback sound amazing is a personal and relaxing high.  However, 3 years ago my audiophile buddy passed away and the dealer we dealt with died six months earlier than that.  It put my life in perspective. Enjoy this life while you are here. If music and your system does that do it. Make yourself happy! Tell your friends to each his own ! 

Eventually you will run out of upgrades in your system which will be as good as you could ever desire and listening to what the equipment can do will fade away so you can just listen to the music. It has been over a year since this happened to me and I build my own amplifiers and preamplifiers so this should be harder for me than it is for someone who buys ready made components because instead of trying different brands I experimented with different circuit designs, different kinds of coupling transformers and different kinds of capacitors finding out the most elaborate often get outclassed by simpler cheaper parts.
After you reach that stable stage in your audiophile life it does not mean you will not still be interested in how other people do it and if you build your own from scratch, how manufacturers who do it differently than you do it.
So sit back and enjoy the different performances of your favorite composers.

@mahler123"Great sound enhances the appreciation of great music.  The gear is a means to an end, not an end in itself."

Well said!!!

Many years ago... I just listened to the music.  Then I discovered what potential was out there, and fell into the rabbit hole.

I'm climbing back out now... with exception of a few minor tweaks yet needed... and am back to listening mostly to the music instead of the equipment.  The plus of that is... I have regained my sanity.

My only major complaint left is... sometimes when I'm busy around the house, I like to go old school and listen to FM broadcasts. The SQ of most stations suck nowadays... with their highly compressed and over processed mp3s.  I truely miss the old fashioned analog broadcasting methods.  Seems anybody with a playlist and a microphone can be a radio DJ these days.