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I firmly hold the belief that it is never too late to change. My view is you can in fact instruct a veteran learner, on the condition that the old dog is willing and eager for knowledge. As long as the old dog is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and endeavor to transform into a improved version.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am attempting to master, even though I am set in my ways? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have grappled with, often, for my whole existence. The quest I'm on … to grow less fearful of those large arachnids. My regrets to all the other spiders that exist; I have to be grounded about my potential for change as a human. It also has to be the huntsman because it is sizeable, commanding, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. This includes a trio of instances in the previous seven days. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

I doubt I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I've dedicated effort to at least achieving a standard level of composure about them.

I have been terrified of spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who find them delightful). In my formative years, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to handle any directly, but I still freaked out if one was visibly in the general area as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family unconscious, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the living room surface. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (lest it ran after me), and spraying a significant portion of pesticide toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it succeeded in affecting and annoy everyone in my house.

As I got older, whoever I was dating or living with was, as a matter of course, the least afraid of spiders in our pairing, and therefore responsible for handling the situation, while I made frightened noises and beat a hasty retreat. If I was on my own, my method was simply to vacate the area, plunge the room into darkness and try to forget about its being before I had to re-enter.

In a recent episode, I was a guest at a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who made its home in the sill, mostly just lingering. As a means to be more comfortable with its presence, I conceptualized the spider as a her, a one of the girls, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us chat. This may seem extremely dumb, but it was effective (somewhat). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less scared worked.

Be that as it may, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the logical reasons not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I know they eat things like buzzing nuisances (my mortal enemies). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, benign creatures.

Alas, they do continue to walk like that. They travel in the utterly horrifying and borderline immoral way conceivable. The sight of their many legs propelling them at that terrible speed induces my ancient psyche to kick into overdrive. They are said to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I believe that triples when they are in motion.

Yet it is no fault of their own that they have unnerving limbs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I’ve found that employing the techniques of making an effort to avoid 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 hairy creatures that move hastily extremely quickly in a way that haunts my sleep, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my shrieks of terror. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and fueled by unfounded fear. I’m not sure I’ll ever make it to the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” stage, but miracles happen. There’s a few years for this old dog yet.