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I maintain the conviction that it is forever an option to transform. I believe you truly can instruct a veteran learner, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and willing to learn. As long as the person is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and strive to be a better dog.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the lesson I am attempting to master, despite the fact that I am decrepit? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, often, for my entire life. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my capacity for development as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is imposing, in charge, and the one I encounter most often. Including three times in the recent past. In my own living space. You can’t see me, but a shudder runs through me with discomfort as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least becoming Normal about them.

An intense phobia regarding spiders dating back to my youth (unlike other children who find them delightful). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to confront any personally, but I still panicked if one was visibly in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and attempting to manage a spider that had made its way onto the living room surface. I “handled” with it by retreating to a remote corner, almost into the next room (lest it pursued me), and spraying a significant portion of insect spray toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it did reach and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, my romantic partner at the time or living with was, automatically, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore responsible for handling the situation, while I produced whimpers of distress and fled the scene. In moments of solitude, my tactic was simply to leave the room, plunge the room into darkness and try to erase the memory of its presence before I had to enter again.

Recently, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the window frame, primarily stationary. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a 'girlie', a girlie, in our circle, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it was effective (a little bit). Put another way, actively deciding to become more fearless worked.

Regardless, I’ve tried to keep it up. I reflect upon all the logical reasons not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I recognize they eat things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, harmless-to-humans creatures.

Alas, they do continue to move like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way conceivable. The vision of their many legs carrying them at that alarming velocity triggers my ancient psyche to enter panic mode. They are said to only have eight legs, but I maintain that triples when they get going.

But it is no fault of their own 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 taking the steps of working to prevent instantly leap out of my body and run away when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has actually started to help.

Simply due to the reality that they are hairy creatures that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when I’ve been wrong and fueled by unfounded fear. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” phase, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years left in this veteran of life yet.