In most areas of human experience one can find some parallel in Greek mythology to a modern situation.
This week I have been struck by the parallel between those people attempting to raise the profile of Haverhill within the region, to tell people what a great place it is, and Sisyphus, the King of Corinth punished in Hades for his misdeeds by eternally having to roll a heavy ball to the top of a hill, only for it to escape his grasp just before the summit and roll down to the bottom again.
From time to time we have little moments of celebration in Haverhill, when the town's achievements are highlighted at the opening of this or the launch of that.
The great and the good arrive, and will unfailingly refer to the transformation which the town has undergone over the past decade and which is still going on.
Councillors from regional nerve-centres like Ipswich or Bury St Edmunds will queue up to pay tribute to Haverhill and be photographed in front of some modern, forward-looking icon, such as the Gateway roundabout, the Genzyme twin towers, or a smiling young person in a busy high street.
For a mad moment, we are all taken in and we think: "They have got it. They really understand. We have convinced them."
And then a few weeks later at a meeting in some far-flung part of the county, someone says something which shows quite clearly that this is all an act – a polished performance behind a smooth mask.
On these brief ocasions, the mask slips and we see what those in power outside Haverhill really feel – and they are as unregenerately discriminatory in their stereotyped little world-views as they ever were.
They may think they are enlightened but it is only in the same way as my parents' generation imagined when they described someone as being so clever or beautiful 'for a darkie'.
Deep down the old prejudices remain.
There will be some people in Haverhill who have only just come down from the ceiling after reading last week of Cavendish's ward member on St Edmunds-bury Council, Cllr Peter Stevens, putting forward the view that Haverhill was 'very lucky' to have a new cinema coming to the town and now a Tesco as well.
"It will transform," he went on grandly, "what was rather a sleepy market town."
One cannot help feeling there is an element of colonialism about the way Haverhill is still viewed within Bury St Edmunds and the rural area around it.
Exchange chemical works or meat processing plants for cotton plantations and you get the idea.
Following on from that comes the same frustration which the British felt over the ingratitude of their colonies.
"We have given them so much," they would repine to each other, "and they don't appreciate it.
"They are always complaining about something or other. What on earth is it they want?"
The reply, of course, is to be treated equally – and before anyone points to variously-compiled figures of 'investment', I mean, to be instinctively thought of equally.
Is it 'lucky' for a town of nearly 25,000 people to have a Tesco and a cinema?
Would Bury St Edmunds be described as 'lucky' to have a Debenhams or a producing theatre?
Of course not. These things would be seen as no more than the God-given right of a historic and picturesque cathedral town.
As for sleepiness, I don't think either Bury St Edmunds or the Upper Stour Valley have any legs to stand on in that regard.
In fact, Haverhill is, for good or ill, considerably more awake in modern terms than either.