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To live in a difficult time.

Albert Einstein wrote a reflective essay in 1931 in which he explained his life philosophy.

Louis Armstrong and his band in New Orleans, 1931.

“How strange is the lot of us mortals!

“Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it.

“But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people—first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent,

“and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.

In 1931, workers at the Rockefeller Center construction site pooled their money to buy this 20’ Christmas tree, which they decorated with ornaments made by their families. Here, the men receive wages.

“A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead,

“and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving.

Left: Mahatma Gandhi attended a conference in London in 1931 in his quest for Indian independence. Here he is shown at No. 10. Right: the severe droughts which led to the Dust Bowl began in 1930 and the first dust bowl storms followed in 1931.

“I am strongly drawn to a frugal life and am often oppressively aware that I am engrossing an undue amount of the labor of my fellow-men.

“I also believe that a simple and unassuming life is good for everybody, physically and mentally.

Left: Stalin walks the streets of Moscow, a practice he was forced to stop after several assassination attempts. From a 1931 speech: “Our system is free from the incurable diseases of capitalism — crises, unemployment, waste, destitution among the masses — because power is in the hands of the working class; because we are conducting a planned economy, systematically accumulating resources and properly distributing them among the different branches of the national economy.” Right: William Randolph Hearst's Castle in northern California, 1931.

“To inquire after the meaning or object of one’s own existence or that of all creatures has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view.

“And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavors and his judgments.

“In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves—this ethical basis I call the ideal of a pigsty.

In 1931, Charlie Chaplin released his acclaimed film, "City Lights," and Albert Einstein attended the film's Hollywood premiere.

“The ideals which have lighted my way, and time after time have given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Kindness, Beauty, and Truth.

“The trite objects of human efforts—possessions, outward success, luxury—have always seemed to me contemptible.

The Empire State Building was completed in 1931 after 410 days of construction work. (Lewis Hine photos.)

“My political ideal is democracy.

“Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized.

“I am quite aware that it is necessary for the achievement of the objective of an organization that one man should do the thinking and directing and generally bear the responsibility.

“But the led must not be coerced, they must be able to choose their leader.

Left: KKK rally in Virginia, May 1931. Right: a sharecropper and his family. Black sharecropper Ralph Gray and other Alabama sharecroppers who attempted to organize were murdered by a vigilante group in July 1931.

“An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates.

“For force always attracts men of low morality,

“and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels.

Left: Berliners hope to withdraw their savings following the collapse of German and Austrian financial systems, a leading cause of the worldwide depression. Right: Hitler poses with students training to serve in the Nazi party's paramilitary wing known as the 'Brownshirts (SA)', August 1931.

“This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor.

“This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed.

“Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism—how passionately I hate them!

My opinion of the human race is high enough that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago,

“had the sound sense of the peoples not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests.

The first Dick Tracy comic strip, by Chester Gould, appeared in October 1931.

“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious.

“It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science.

“It was the experience of mystery—even if mixed with fear—that engendered religion.

“A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds—

“it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity;

“in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man.

In 1931, between 3.7 and 4 million people were killed in floods covering a large area of central China, affecting Wuhan, Nanjing and other major cities.

“I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the kind that we experience in ourselves.

“Neither can I nor would I want to conceive of an individual that survives his physical death;

“let feeble souls, from fear or absurd egoism, cherish such thoughts.

Einstein in 1893, at age 14, and in 1947 with Robert Oppenheimer (Alfred Eisenstaedt photo for Life Magazine). Einstein died in April 1955.

“I am satisfied with the mystery of the eternity of life

“and with the awareness and a glimpse of the marvelous structure of the existing world,

“together with the devoted striving to comprehend a portion, be it ever so tiny, of the Reason that manifests itself in nature.”

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I’ll see you tomorrow.

— Brenda

Albert Einstein, “The World As I See It,” 1931. Edited for brevity.