Spent a long time wondering about the meaning of life.?

It's true that Einstein arrived at most of his ideas by just thinking about them. His major efforts came later, when he had to try to do the math to demonstrate how they worked. However, Einstein never really applied his physics, which he took very seriously, to the meaning of life. I think that he, like most parents, stopped thinking about that stuff once he had a family. That sort of life change tends to focus one's thinking in a more practical direction. While Dr Einstein was not what I would call a real family man, he was also not easily distracted by discussions on metaphysics, spiritualism, or religion. His philosophy was simple and direct, based on a committed pacifism and a cultural Jewish background. He consistently rejected the notions of quantum mechanics that drifted into philosophical, non-physical realms.