🔗 Share this article

I firmly hold the belief that it is never too late to transform. I think you absolutely are able to instruct a veteran learner, provided that the old dog is open-minded and eager for knowledge. So long as the individual in question is ready to confess when it was in error, and endeavor to transform into a better dog.

Alright, I confess, I am that seasoned creature. And the trick I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an significant challenge, something I have grappled with, repeatedly, for my entire life. My ongoing effort … to develop a calmer response toward those large arachnids. Pardon me, all the remaining arachnid species that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I encounter most often. This includes a trio of instances in the previous seven days. Inside my home. I'm not visible to you, but I'm grimacing at the very thought as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving a baseline of normalcy about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders from my earliest years (as opposed to other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to ensure I never had to engage with any directly, 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 slumbering on, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, nearly crossing the threshold (for fear that it pursued me), and discharging a significant portion of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, by default, the most courageous of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore tasked with dealing with it, while I emitted whimpers of distress and beat a hasty retreat. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its being before I had to enter again.

In a recent episode, I visited a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the casement, mostly just hanging out. To be less scared of it, I conceptualized the spider as a 'girlie', a one of the girls, in our circle, just chilling in the sun and listening to us gab. This may seem extremely dumb, but it was effective (a little bit). Put another way, actively deciding to become less scared worked.

Be that as it may, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I recognize they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, benign creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way possible. The vision of their multiple limbs transporting them at that terrible speed causes my caveman brain to enter panic mode. They are said to only have eight legs, but I believe that triples when they get going.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have frightening appendages, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that implementing the strategy of making an effort to avoid have a visceral panic reaction and run away when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their good points, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are hairy creatures that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when I’ve been wrong and driven by irrational anxiety. I’m not sure I’ll ever reach the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” phase, but miracles happen. Some life is left left in this seasoned learner yet.