It’s not a bad chore for me, though I sometime hate myself when I take several to the range. I tend to find it relaxing. Could be because I spend so much time behind a desk at work that I enjoying doing something with just my hands. Yesterday I found myself frustrated over some personal ■■■■, took down a couple new "tools*, wiped them down, inspected, a little oil, and I felt as right as rain after.
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I love doing it. Like @Todd30 said, you can familiarize yourself with the parts and how they operate. Even my stored guns which haven’t been shot get cleaned every few months.
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I enjoy taking the time to clean and inspect my firearms.
As with my guitars, motorcycles, and cars I don’t trust them in the care of anyone but me.
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Ditto on dong the work yourself. You wouldn’t believe the things that we see in tech at a track day. Most people are ignorant about most things, some while claiming expertise. Death of Expertise is a great book about this.
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Love cleaning the guns, hate cleaning the magazines.
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How come? I don’t think I’ve ever cleaned one.
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I find it hard to take them apart (my 9mm mags) and I often have to chase a part or the spring around the room (my .22 mags).
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My carry 9, keltec, had been neglected for a number of months when I brought to the range for a 50 rep work out. Much to my chagrin, the protection device, known affectionately to the media as a gun, would not cycle a spent round, which for the operator of this protection device, could be VERY distressing in other situations other than the range. Closer investigation concluded that dust had filled the slide tracks.
Can’t speak for your other personal protection pieces that are store away safely, but the one on your belt/IWB/OWB needs cleaning if you expect it to operate as designed when needed.
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Gun cleaning is a kind of link to another time.
Not that long ago it was common for people to take a hands on approach to maintenance of all kinds.
Now, not so much. Scheduled maintenance, dependent on specialized tools and training, is sent out to technicians or designed to be maintenance free, which is another way of saying disposable.
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In a very real way, taking care of your carry gun is taking care of yourself 
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True, very true. 
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I believe it was Admiral McRaven who said in his 2014 UT Austin commencement address about making your bed every morning to satisfactory expectations that if you can’t do the little things right, you’ll never be able to do the big things right. Cleaning your gun should not be a ritual. Rituals are breeding ground for inattention to purpose. Cleaning you gun is not merely about removing carbon and brass. It is about thoroughly inspecting your gun for parts needing replacement, for clues of potential mechanical failure. It also is about the self-discipline of conscientious character.
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I’m with @Todd30, for me I want to know my guns. Even as a kid I had to take things apart. My mom wasn’t all that appreciative when I dismantled the phone.
Of course now when I fix things for her she is more understanding.
If you want to be able to make at least simple repairs, you have to get to know your guns. Cleaning is not only necessary but it helps you to know more about the gun, and besides your wife will almost never want to help, so its alone time!
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You’re not wrong…but here’s the thing. It is about frequency and use, and the potential for breaking instead of cleaning things. It happens, and it happens a lot, particularly when humans are involved. This is the main driver of automation.
As some know, I coach at motorcycle track days. Some guys change their oil, brake fluid, etc. every weekend. This gives them a (false) level of comfort, but nothing else. It introduces a lot of opportunity for damaging something, reassembling incorrectly, losing a part, etc. And at tech in the morning…we find a lot of this introduced trouble.
More isn’t better. Right is right. There’s a reason for tire rotation and change intervals, oil change interals, etc. Changing your tires and oil after every ride solves nothing and introduces wear and tear on other items.
My grandmother heard the made up rule aboud 8 glasses of water a day and gave herself congestive heart failure because her heart couldn’t pump.
So, for me…I clean when it needs it, not every time I touch, use, or look at a firearm. These things are made to work perfectly in much worse conditions than we put them in.
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Breaking stuff isn’t maintenance, it’s abuse.
Most handguns are meant to be field stripped for maintenance and completely torn down only by a knowledgeable 'smith when it’s necessary—like after a decade of not being cleaned.
Consider the horizontally oppose air cooled 4 cyl Lycoming engine in the Super Cubs flown in the Alaska Bush—as long as the routine maintenance is followed and annual compression test checked out, the TBO was 2,000 hours. that’s a lot of hours!
I don’t view it as a ritual. I clean my guns after they’re used just like I wipe the grease from my tools before I put them away. My guns are tools which have a specific purpose. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Perhaps it’s something more just to me then.
I remember well cleaning shotguns with my dad.
Those were good times and I miss them as well as admonitions from my Uncle Albert,
a veteran of N. Africa in WW2 who took PM (Preventative Maintenance) very seriously.
I like to keep my gun cleaning supplies organized so it’s more of a purposeful tradition than a ritual
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I pay a friend to come over and clean my two Glocks and any rifle I might have used. He does a great job, better than I could do. 
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I am the guy that you would call, I clean guns for others. The things I have seen. 
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