One of the best writers in TheEpochTimes is James Sale, a must read IMO, particularly if you have a little taste for classical literature and mythology. There is much to be learned in his posts as there is in his book Motivational Maps (get ChatGPT to give you a summary of the book, if nothing else).
He just posted Exploring Herakles and the Augean Stables about the classic tale of Hercules fifth of 12 labors. Read James’ other posts on the other labors for some interesting ways ancient Greeks taught morality and civil motivation in their time - much to be learned for our time too. But I digress.
Below are my thoughts interlaced with his passages as I read with the context of current news.
At the risk of giving away MY story, here is a cheatsheet to Herakle’s story
Herakles is the Greek name of the Latin Hercules that we mostly refer to today
He was condemned by Zeus (god) to 12 Labors requiring strength, courage, etc. - long story
He performed them all eventually, Hollywood ending - long story
In the Fifth Labor, he was given to “clean the cow stalls” of King Augeas
The stables had not been cleaned in 30 years and were foul and hardened
So foul that nobody would attempt it, and the city stunk big time
So enter Herakles! And here goes the story that James painted in my mind…
(mm = my mind)
… At first glance, none among Herakles’s Twelve Labors seems less heroic than the cleansing of the Augean Stables. Where the slaying of monsters and dragons suggests glory, this task smacks of drudgery by a great hero reduced to the status of a man who mucks out stables. Yet, considered properly, the fifth labor conceals a task of deeper wisdom. It isn’t about brute force but about creative intelligence: the ability to purify what has become foul, not through endless toil, but through reimagining the problem itself.
(mm) Images of Trump? …
Yes, draining a swamp does not appear hard or heroic, but welcome to the people
… Even the slaying of the Nemean Lion wasn’t merely a question of brute strength. The genius of the act lay in the fact that Herakles was able to skin its pelt and so provide invulnerability for himself. Herakles exhibited not just strength but deep wisdom in his victory.
(mm) Ending wars is more heroic, and Trump has done it already a few times, except for Ukraine as of today 11/26/25.
A Triumph
… At first sight, this was simply a triumph of ingenuity…
… The uncleaned stables therefore represent not a passing lapse but the maturity of corruption. It’s the moment when decay has become institutionalized, where what was once an oversight has hardened into habit.
(mm) Geez, 30 years of corruption and incompetence sounds familiar, hardened by practice, habit and mindset…
Whole-Brain Thinking
… Herakles’s task, then, was to deal not with dirt alone but with the moral and psychological silt that accumulates when conscience sleeps. Every person, every society, every institution has its Augean Stables. They are the neglected corners where falsehood, apathy, and denial pile up until they seem immovable. The hero’s insight was to see that such filth can’t be cleaned by effort alone; it demands a redirection of energy, a new flow.
(mm) Wow, James, too, must be seeing it. How could he write it and not see it?
… This is where the myth has its subtlest meaning. Herakles channels the two rivers, the Alpheus and the Peneus—streams that can be read as symbols of the two hemispheres of the human mind. The left river (Alpheus) represents logic, order, and calculation. It’s a seeking, a clarifying outward energy. The right river (Peneus) represents intuition, imagination, and vision, a weaving, transforming, and inward energy.
(mm) This is getting deep. But today’s swamp draining seems to require both the inspiration of courage and the practicality of competent management
… Alone, each can stagnate. Reason without imagination becomes sterile bureaucracy, and imagination without reason dissolves into chaos. But when Herakles unites them, the result is transformative. The waters of thought and inspiration, flowing together, cleanse what neither could have managed alone.
(mm) On the first try in 2017, there was courage, but the management was corrupted by a naive and unforgivable trust in swamp creatures. On the second attempt in 2025, even more courage had been honed by years in the wilderness, but a trusted, reliable management team was brought to bear. A “whole-brain-thingking” of sorts (Thank them all on this Thanksgiving Day).
A Thankless Job
… But to return to Herakles himself: There is also a moral irony to the story. Having struck a bargain with Augeas to be paid for his work, Herakles was later refused his reward. Moreover, King Eurystheus declared the labor invalid because the hero had acted for his own gain.
(mm) Wow is James seeing the same world I do? Work for free and be denied credit?
… The message is sharp: True purification, whether of mind or society, is seldom recognized by the powers it threatens. Reformers who cleanse the stables of their filth are rarely thanked by those who have lived comfortably amid it. Yet the cleansing must be done, regardless of reward.
(mm) Is there a message between these lines? One last fraud to be endured?
… In contemporary terms, the Augean Stables are all around us: institutions bloated with bureaucracy, political discourse clogged with cynicism, and digital spaces choked by misinformation. On a personal level, they are the inner rooms where our own compromises, half-truths, and neglected duties accumulate. The myth reminds us that shoveling harder isn’t enough. We must, like Herakles, redirect the rivers to restore the circulation of honesty, imagination, and moral energy.
(mm) There has to be a message here.
… The cleansing of the stables, then, isn’t an act of hygiene but of creative renewal. It shows that purification is an imaginative act, that intelligence itself is a kind of moral water. When the two rivers of the mind are brought into harmony, what seemed impossible becomes natural. The filth that once defined us is swept away, and we emerge into clarity.
… Herakles’s Labor ends where all great acts of reform end: in quiet transformation. The stables gleam once more; the cattle breathe clean air. But the deeper cleansing is within, in a mind that has discovered the power of unity, and in the world that, if only for a moment, has been made new.
(mm) That’s the hope. History will judge.
