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I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to evolve. My view is you truly can instruct a veteran learner, on the condition that the mature being is willing and eager for knowledge. So long as the individual in question is willing to admit when it was wrong, and work to become a more enlightened self.

Well, admittedly, I am the old dog. And the skill I am attempting to master, although I am decrepit? It is an major undertaking, a feat I have battled against, often, for my whole existence. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is large, commanding, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing three times in the previous seven days. In my own living space. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least becoming a baseline of normalcy about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who are fascinated by them). In my formative years, I had ample brothers around to ensure I never had to handle any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the general area as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and trying to deal with a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “managed” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (in case it pursued me), and discharging a generous amount of bug repellent toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the bravest of spiders between us, and therefore responsible for dealing with it, while I produced low keening sounds and ran away. When finding myself alone, my tactic was simply to vacate the area, turn off the light and try to ignore its existence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I stayed at a pal's residence where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the window frame, mostly just stationary. As a means to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a female entity, a gal, one of us, just lounging in the sun and listening to us gab. It sounds extremely dumb, but it worked (a little bit). Put another way, making a conscious choice to become less phobic worked.

Regardless, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the sensible justifications not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they consume things like buzzing nuisances (the bane of my existence). I know they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They move in the most terrifying and almost unjust way imaginable. The vision of their numerous appendages carrying them at that frightening pace induces my primordial instincts to go into high alert. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I believe that multiplies when they move.

However it is no fault of their own that they have scary legs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – perhaps even more so. I’ve found that taking the steps of working to prevent instantly leap out of my body and flee when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are furry beings that dart around extremely quickly in a way that haunts my sleep, does not justify they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when I’ve been wrong and fueled by unfounded fear. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” stage, but miracles happen. There’s a few years left in this old dog yet.