My Labours, My Shadows

Witty Banter

Today, I wanted to be a little more personal and talk about the crowd favourite, Heracles. When most people think of him, they picture the lion pelts, the monsters, the glory of a hero. But when I think of Heracles, I don’t see victory, I see exhaustion. A man thrown into one impossible task after another, with no real promise that things will ever get easier. That feels painfully familiar.

Some days, I feel like I’m living his labours. My Hydra isn’t a serpent but an endless list of projects, cut off one head and two more grow back. My Augean Stables aren’t filled with cattle but with the mess of relationships and responsibilities I can never quite clean. My lion isn’t prowling in the hills but clawing at my own thoughts. Every task feels absurd, frustrating, repetitive, endless.

Camus once said the only real question is whether life is worth living in the face of its absurdity. The myth of Sisyphus gives us a man pushing his rock up a hill forever. But Heracles is another version of that story, a man who doesn’t get to stop, who doesn’t get to ask “why me?”, who simply keeps going. He doesn’t wrestle monsters for meaning. He wrestles them because they’re there, because he has to.

And maybe that’s the lesson. The meaning isn’t in slaying the Hydra or cleaning the stables, it’s in showing up, in the act of standing your ground against life’s impossible weight. Heracles didn’t quit. And maybe I can’t either.

The Nemean Lion – Wrestling With Myself

Heracles faced a beast with impenetrable skin. I face my own self-doubt, thick-skinned, clawed, roaring in my head. It doesn’t matter how sharp my arguments are, they never pierce it. In the absurdist sense, the battle isn’t about “winning.” It’s about continuing to wrestle with that lion, even when it feels impossible. Sometimes, like Heracles, I choke it out not with weapons but with persistence.

The Lernaean Hydra – Problems That Multiply

One head cut off, two more grow. That’s how my problems work too. Every exam, every project, every unfinished thought spawns new anxieties. It’s maddening. Absurdism tells me: yes, life will never run out of heads to cut. The futility is real. And yet, like Heracles, I return to the fight anyway, knowing I’ll never kill the cycle, but I can live within it.

The Ceryneian Hind – The Things That Always Escape Me

Chasing the Hind feels like chasing happiness, stability, or even love. Every time I think I’m close, it slips away, delicate and untouchable. What’s absurd is that the chase itself becomes life. Heracles chased for a year. Maybe I’ve been chasing for years too. Maybe the point isn’t catching maybe it’s realizing the absurd beauty of the pursuit.

The Erymanthian Boar – Dragging My Chaos Into the Open

Heracles didn’t kill the boar, he captured it and dragged it back alive. My own wildness, my fears, my anger, I can’t destroy them. They live. But I can drag them into the daylight, show them, own them. Absurdism reminds me: nothing guarantees those struggles will ever vanish, but I can give them shape, wrestle them into the open, and walk on.

The Augean Stables – Cleaning What Feels Uncleanable

Heracles had to wash years of filth in a single day. I know that feeling,  when my room is a disaster, my mind is cluttered, my past mistakes pile up like muck. The absurd truth: some dirt never really goes away. But like Heracles redirecting rivers, sometimes I can change the flow of my life, let new waters sweep through, and make space again.

The Stymphalian Birds – Fighting the Noise

The birds screeched, swarmed, impossible to fight head-on. For me, it’s the noise of the world: notifications, expectations, endless chatter. It’s absurd how much time I waste trying to silence it. Heracles didn’t kill them all, he just scared them off. That feels right. I don’t conquer the noise, I learn to make it scatter when I need quiet.

The Cretan Bull – The Violence of My Restlessness

A bull ravaging Crete; a restless energy ravaging me. I throw myself into new things, projects, people, plans and sometimes they wreck everything before I can tame them. Heracles wrestled the bull but didn’t kill it. Absurdism says: don’t expect your restlessness to vanish. Just hold it by the horns long enough to steer it.

 The Mares of Diomedes – The Things That Consume Me

The mares devoured men. I know my mares: distractions, addictions, obsessions. They consume time, love, peace. Absurdism doesn’t pretend I can destroy them. But like Heracles, I can confront them, feed them what they demand, and then walk away knowing they’ll always hunger again.

The Belt of Hippolyta – Negotiating With Power

Heracles had to take the Amazon queen’s belt, a symbol of strength and status. I’ve found myself chasing symbols too, recognition, approval, credentials. It feels absurd because once I get them, they don’t fill the void. But still, I ask for the belt, again and again, knowing it won’t be the last one.

The Cattle of Geryon – Endless To-Do Lists

A monster with three bodies guarded the cattle. That’s how my tasks feel: one project hides behind two more. I think I’ve done enough, but there’s always another. Absurdism reminds me that finishing isn’t real. Like Heracles, I keep walking the cattle home, even if I know tomorrow they’ll wander again.

The Apples of the Hesperides – Chasing the Golden Things

Golden apples, gifts of immortality. For me, it’s success, perfection, the “golden life” I imagine for myself. Absurdism makes me laugh bitterly: there is no final golden fruit. Even Heracles needed help holding up the sky to get them. So maybe the point isn’t the apples, but realizing I can’t hold the heavens alone.

Cerberus – Facing the Darkness Directly

Finally, Heracles had to descend to the underworld and face the hound of death itself. For me, it’s my deepest fears, the shadow of mortality, the absurd recognition that life ends and meaning dissolves. And yet, like Heracles, I sometimes stand before the darkness, trembling but alive, and I say: “Let me pass. I’ll take you with me, but I will return.”

The Absurd Hero

Heracles didn’t choose his labours. Neither do I. The world throws absurd tasks at me, each more impossible than the last. And yet, he stood. He kept standing. Absurdism tells me that’s all I can do too: not to seek some final victory, but to live, to act, to stand in defiance of meaninglessness.

Like Camus said of Sisyphus, I must imagine Heracles happy. Not because his labours made sense but because he kept going anyway.