How important is spending time with your gear?

Actually my girl is too cool to get rid of.....  my ex was the one who crushed my audio dreams.    We listen to music all the time together 

@erik_squires --

How important is it to spend time physically close to your gear, vs. enjoying it's output?  If you could have your gear in another room, or closet, and you were left with just your speakers with no audible downside would you do it?  Would you put your gear away and enjoy the empty space or do you need the physical closeness?

I guess my immediate thought would be realizing that the effort of putting away the gear and out of sight would be too much of hassle, and as I don't mind looking at my gear it's not an issue - a relief, even. Indeed, I enjoy both output and gear visibility, so the two are not mutually exclusive.

Entertaining the thought, however: does the gear interfere subconsciously with my experience of music? I'm sure some would argue the mere physical presence of gear in the listening space, not least between the speakers, is sonically obtrusive, but as a thought experiment as it pertains only to the mental aspect of seeing/knowing the gear is in the room and how that effects the listener, my take as it applies to myself is it doesn't really matter.

That is and to effectively reiterate: I prefer the gear in the room with the speakers - between the speakers, sonic obtrusiveness be damned - as its absence would somehow weird me out with a "where the hell is the gear" kind of thought. In any case the sound of my setup totally inhabits the listening space with its presence and there-ness, so the awareness of gear becomes secondary and indeed wholly negated - at least that's my conscious assessment. 

I'd love it if I could rid the room of everything except the speakers (and room treatment, of course).