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I am someone who believes that it is always possible to evolve. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, provided that the old dog is receptive and ready for growth. As long as the person is prepared to acknowledge when it was in error, and work to become a better dog.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the lesson I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am decrepit? It is an important one, something I have battled against, frequently, for my whole existence. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my capacity for development as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is large, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. Including on three separate occasions in the last week. Inside my home. Though unseen, but I'm grimacing at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least attaining a baseline of normalcy about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders from my earliest years (unlike other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had ample brothers around to ensure I never had to handle any personally, but I still panicked if one was clearly in the same room as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and trying to deal with a spider that had made its way onto the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, nearly crossing the threshold (for fear that it ran after me), and spraying a generous amount of bug repellent toward it. The chemical cloud missed the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and disturb everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, my romantic partner at the time or living with was, automatically, the least afraid of spiders in our pairing, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I made frightened noises and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my strategy was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to erase the memory of its being before I had to re-enter.

Recently, I visited a companion's home where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the casement, mostly just hanging out. To be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a female entity, a one of the girls, part of the group, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. It sounds extremely dumb, but it had an impact (to some degree). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less phobic proved successful.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I think about all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they eat things like insect pests (the bane of my existence). I am cognizant they are one of nature’s beautiful, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to move like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way imaginable. The sight of their numerous appendages transporting them at that frightening pace causes my caveman brain to go into high alert. They are said to only have eight legs, but I believe that multiplies when they get going.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. My experience has shown that implementing the strategy of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, attempting to stay calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are hairy creatures that move hastily with startling speed in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. I can admit when fear has clouded my judgment and fueled by baseless terror. I doubt I’ll ever make it to the “trapping one under a cup and escorting it to the garden” level, but you never know. There’s a few years for this seasoned learner yet.