🔗 Share this article

I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to change. My view is you can in fact instruct a veteran learner, as long as the mature being is receptive and willing to learn. Provided that the individual in question is ready to confess when it was in error, and strive to be a improved version.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am trying to learn, even though I am decrepit? It is an significant challenge, something I have grappled with, often, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of the common huntsman. My regrets to all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be realistic about my possible growth as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. Encompassing on three separate occasions in the recent past. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving a baseline of normalcy about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). In my formative years, I had plenty of male siblings around to guarantee I never had to confront any personally, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the immediate vicinity as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it ran after me), and spraying half a bottle of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, whoever I was dating or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders in our pairing, and therefore in charge of dealing with it, while I emitted frightened noises and fled the scene. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, turn off the light and try to forget about its presence before I had to re-enter.

Not long ago, I visited a companion's home where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the sill, mostly just stationary. As a means to be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a gal, part of the group, just chilling in the sun and overhearing us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it was effective (a little bit). Alternatively, making a conscious choice to become less scared proved successful.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I reflect upon all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I understand they eat things like buzzing nuisances (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Alas, they do continue to scuttle like that. They travel in the most terrifying and almost unjust way imaginable. The vision of their many legs 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 am convinced that multiplies when they are in motion.

But it is no fault of their own that they have scary legs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that employing the techniques of working to prevent have a visceral panic reaction and retreat when I see one, trying to remain composed and breathing steadily, and consciously focusing about their good points, has begun to yield results.

Simply due to the reality that they are hairy creatures that move hastily at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they merit my intense dislike, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when I’ve been wrong and driven by unfounded fear. It is uncertain I’ll ever reach the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” phase, but one can't be sure. A bit of time remains left in this old dog yet.