🔗 Share this article

I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to evolve. I believe you can in fact instruct a veteran learner, as long as the mature being is receptive and willing to learn. So long as the old dog is ready to confess when it was wrong, and work to become a improved version.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the lesson I am attempting to master, although I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, a feat I have struggled with, frequently, for my all my days. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward the common huntsman. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. Including on three separate occasions in the recent past. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who are fascinated by them). In my formative years, I had ample brothers around to ensure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still freaked out if one was obviously in the general area as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and attempting to manage a spider that had crawled on to the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, almost into the next room (for fear that it ran after me), and discharging a significant portion of pesticide toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and disturb everyone in my house.

In my adult life, my romantic partner at the time or sharing a home with was, by default, the most courageous of spiders between us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I produced low keening sounds and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to leave the room, turn off the light and try to forget about its existence before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I stayed at a pal's residence where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the window frame, mostly just stationary. In order to be more comfortable with its presence, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a gal, in our circle, just lounging in the sun and overhearing us gab. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it was effective (a little bit). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become less phobic proved successful.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I reflect upon all the rational arguments not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they consume things like insect pests (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to scuttle like that. They move in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way conceivable. The vision of their many legs propelling them at that frightening pace triggers my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They claim to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that multiplies when they are in motion.

However it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – if not more. I have discovered that taking the steps of trying not to have a visceral panic reaction and flee when I see one, trying to remain calm and collected, and consciously focusing about their good points, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are fuzzy entities that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my shrieks of terror. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and driven by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever attain the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” level, but you never know. A bit of time remains within this old dog yet.