Why do some think "music" (not gear, trading, etc.) is the ultimate end?

Why do some think "music" (not gear, trading, etc.) is the ultimate end?

Ok, how could one not think that music is the whole point?

I had a chance to figure out for real, one time, if it was music, or the gear.

A house fire next door, was about to remove my 3rd story apartment in an old victorian house...from the surface of the planet.

I had seconds to decide. I was also fairly poor at the time. I could lose the music, the crates of records,

or the belles 450 power amp, thorens TD125mk2 table, with the sme arm and the ortofon mc30 super..and the modded out ps audio 5.0 preamp. speakers at the time, for that moment, was...the Monitor audio 952 and a pair of NHT’s that I was playing with.

I only had, I figured, enough time to move one component or aspect, before the fire took it all.

I was also half asleep, groggy, staggering, as someone had awoken me by banging on the door down below, really hard. One of the crowd that had gathered..was banging on the downstairs door..to inform anyone inside...that the house next door was on fire.

I went for the records. save the records. save the music. to hell with the hard won equipment, I could always, somehow, get more. Save the music. Music first.

I found out for real, with an actual gun pointed at my head with an actual forced binary question and answer set.

We can talk and talk..but who really gets in the actual sights of it, with the barrel stuck to their temple in a real world situation... and has to make a real choice? At a literal snap of the fingers?

Until then, it’s just talk.

Music first. the rest is the bone of contention, but again, the map is not the territory. The attitude and the talk is not the war itself. the battle is about the music.

Things are definitely conflated but one is not actually the other. It’s about the music, music first. Serve the music with the gear, but never lose track of that, and you’ll be fine.

If you use the analogy of cars plenty of people (well perhaps mainly men) love cars for cars own sake and not just as a means of getting places.  OTOH I paint, and for many, watercolor painting supplies are just a means to paint—though to be sure, there are people who are just as into painting supplies as many are into stereo equipment.  

I like the car analogy. Made me remember the old "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" (Pirsig) which showed that the technology of the motorcycle and its maintenance were not mere means to the rides, but they too were also ends. All these ends were related without reduction and part of a whole. The need to split things apart -- into "means" and "end" -- and then to elevate one above the other is our Western cultural inheritance, but it is not the final and only truth, that book suggested.

Some analogies (or dis-analogies, perhaps) where a process is not just the means to the end:

Some who cook love the process as much as the plated food. The "slow food movement" adds in the local region as part of that larger process. 

Some baseball players love the game as much as the end score. There is an "art" to the game, which is the pitching, catching, strategy, etc. (Might one not see this in the equipment we use, discuss, in audio?)
Etc.

Without music equipment is worthless, roberjerman points out. I see the point. But a stack of records with nothing to play them on doesn’t seem much better.

Great story. 

It's the actual music that stirs emotions. Not the gear, cables, etc. You do see threads that appear to contradict my opinion though.

If it came down to it, I would listen to  a clock radio and be fine. I'm grateful having the opportunity to hear music thru "better" equipment.

One other thing, as a longtime sufferer of tinnitus and hearing loss, everyone needs to be  more conscious of their hearing health. I love loud R&R, but RARELY ever  push the volume these days.

Say what?