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I am someone who believes that it is forever an option to evolve. I think you truly can instruct a veteran learner, provided that the mature being is receptive and willing to learn. As long as the old dog is willing to admit when it was in error, and work to become a better dog.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the skill I am working to acquire, even though I am decrepit? It is an major undertaking, something I have struggled with, often, for my whole existence. My ongoing effort … to become less scared of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my possible growth as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is imposing, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. Including on three separate occasions in the previous seven days. Inside my home. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head and grimacing as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “admirer” status, but my project has been at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders from my earliest years (in contrast to other children who find them delightful). During my childhood, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to confront any personally, but I still became hysterical if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (lest it chased me), and emptying a significant portion of pesticide toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it did reach and disturb everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, whoever I was dating or living with was, by default, the bravest of spiders in our pairing, and therefore in charge of handling the situation, while I produced low keening sounds and beat a hasty retreat. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to vacate the area, douse the illumination and try to ignore its being before I had to enter again.

Not long ago, I stayed at a pal's residence where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who made its home in the window frame, mostly just stationary. As a means to be less fearful, I conceptualized the spider as a 'girlie', a one of the girls, part of the group, just lounging in the sun and listening to us yap. It sounds quite foolish, but it worked (a little bit). Or, making a conscious choice to become less phobic worked.

Regardless, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the logical reasons not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders won’t harm me. I know they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I know they are one of the planet's marvelous, benign creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to move like that. They propel themselves in the utterly horrifying and somehow offensive way possible. The appearance of their numerous appendages propelling them at that terrible speed induces my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I maintain that multiplies when they get going.

Yet it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – if not more. I have discovered that employing the techniques of trying not to instantly leap out of my body and retreat when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and deliberately thinking about their good points, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are fuzzy entities that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they warrant my loathing, or my shrieks of terror. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and fueled by unfounded fear. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “trapping one under a cup and taking it outside” stage, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains for this old dog yet.