Both Heidegger and Camus held that everyday breakdowns reveal life’s fundamental questions.

Evidence

In a way, this is Camus’ variant on Heidegger’s question of Being. Heidegger thought the questionable nature of existence looms up when a hammer breaks; Camus thought similarly basic collapses in everyday projects allow us to ask the biggest question in life. Also like Heidegger, he thought the answer took the form of a decision rather than a statement: for Camus, we must decide whether to give up or keep going. If we keep going, it must be on the basis of accepting that there is no ultimate meaning to what we do. Camus concludes his book with Sisyphus resuming his endless task while resigning himself to its absurdity. Thus: ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’ — Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café, 486

Categorization

• XREF: Connects Camus’s project-collapse to Heidegger’s broken-hammer analysis of Being, linking two existentialist pillars the reader is oriented around.
• QUESTION: Worth chasing: Camus’s ‘decision rather than statement’ answer parallels Heidegger’s resoluteness — how far does the parallel extend?