Still, the game of go is supposed to depict a battle, not to be an exercise in zen stone garden building. If neither opponent is trying to win it makes for a rather boring match, I think.
How much one is attached to winning and losing emotionally is a different question, though. If winning/improving one’s rating becomes the only thing one cares about, that’s not sane nor it leads to good games. On an amateur level, at least, a pro is allowed to be slightly insane. 
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Totally agree 
Well, actually a model of a battle perhaps? (Ah, you said it already: “depict”)
Isn’t it rather a philosophical question? Namely, whether we play to defeat the other person or to defeat the other colour? To be a more “clever” person than the other or to find the best move for a given game situation?
In the first case pain is guaranteed to come because it also works the other way ’round, i.e. the feeling of personal defeat. In the latter, the elegance can still be appreciated.
And to think that what divides the top #1 pro from the #100 pro may be like a few millimeters while I am a lightyear away just from the next kyu level 
(allowing myself a homeopathic dose of insanity)
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Actually, I don’t think so. At least not originally I believe there are several theories about what was the purpouse of go in the first place. But many of them lean towards the opinion that it was the way to express the ballance of oposing cosmic forces (similar to Yin and yang symbol) or just a counting device. So quite possibly its original idea was to be an exercise in zen… (at least from what I have read…)
And 9 dan proffesional Michael Redmond also expressed a dislike in comparing go to a war (in his commentary on AlphaGo vs Lee Sedol)
Anyway, admittadely you have kind of a point that without wanting to win (and it is the goal of the game…) the game would be a bit boring probably. So how about we change it to something like “Winning is the goal, but not the reason for playing” would you be happy with that?
And god damn it I am an amateur and I also want to be alowed to have a bit of insanity!
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If you please forgive me for the little off-topic comment (actually it is meanwhile rather slightly tangential than totally OT 
):
“The only difference between me and a madman is that I am not mad.”
— Salvador Dalí
Now, how to implement this into my game …
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Yes, I’ve heard the legends. Personally, I find them about as convincing as the idea of Texas hold’em being invented by Hermes Trismegistus in order to preserve sacred knowledge. Sure, there might have been divination techniques using similar equipment, but I highly doubt they consisted of actually playing weiqi.
Actually, the rules of go are so simple that the game could have been invented without much symbolism behind it at all. Back at school, we were playing a similar game using pen and paper, and I do not remember imagining great armies clashing, much less celestial bodies dancing in eternal harmony. We were just connecting dots, trying to surround the largest territory. That’s in itself is a clear enough goal.
But if there is a metaphor behind the game I’m more inclined to think it’s the one of greedy warlords dividing the land. Not much of a romantic, am I?
Well, that’s what makes talking to other people interesting: they do not always agree with me. Quite often, I would say. 
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Aha! Pen and paper that you originaly had for learning geometry! And you later utilized it for purposes of a game. Just like with go.
No, in truth I understand what you are saying. I wouldnt take the legends for face value either. However there are some interesting ideas behind those theories. And as always truth will be somwhere in the middle, or somwhere else completely.
But me, being a romantic soul (and often losing big groups of stones) I try to imagine something less horrible then losing ten good men, just because I forgot to extend man if I were a warlord my soldiers would bloody hate me
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