🔗 Share this article

I am someone who believes that it is never too late to evolve. I think you truly can instruct a veteran learner, on the condition that the old dog is open-minded and willing to learn. Provided that the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and work to become a more enlightened self.

OK yes, I am the old dog. And the skill I am working to acquire, even though I am set in my ways? It is an important one, an issue I have struggled with, often, for my all my days. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Apologies to all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be realistic about my capacity for development as a human. The target inevitably is the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I run into regularly. Encompassing three times in the last week. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

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

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (as opposed to other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had ample brothers around to guarantee I never had to engage with any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was clearly in the general area as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the living room surface. I “dealt” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, almost into the next room (in case it chased me), and spraying a generous amount of insect spray toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it did reach and annoy everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or sharing a home with was, as a matter of course, the bravest of spiders in our pairing, and therefore responsible for managing the intruder, while I emitted whimpers of distress and beat a hasty retreat. When finding myself alone, my strategy was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its existence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a friend’s house where there was a very large huntsman who made its home in the sill, for the most part hanging out. As a means to be less scared of it, I imagined the spider as a her, a girlie, one of us, just lounging in the sun and listening to us gab. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it had an impact (a little bit). Or, making a conscious choice to become less phobic did the trick.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I reflect upon all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I know they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (the bane of my existence). It is well-established they are one of the planet's marvelous, non-threatening to people creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They move in the deeply alarming and borderline immoral way conceivable. The sight of their numerous appendages transporting them at that frightening pace induces my caveman brain to go into high alert. They claim to only have the typical arachnid arrangement, but I am convinced that increases exponentially when they get going.

However it isn’t their fault that they have unnerving limbs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – if not more. My experience has shown that taking the steps of trying not to have a visceral panic reaction and flee when I see one, attempting to stay still and breathing, and intentionally reflecting about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are furry beings that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they warrant my loathing, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when my reactions have been misguided and fueled by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever attain the “trapping one under a cup and relocating it outdoors” stage, but you never know. A bit of time remains within this veteran of life yet.