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I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to evolve. My view is you can in fact instruct a veteran learner, on the condition that the mature being is open-minded and willing to learn. Provided that the individual in question is prepared to acknowledge when it was mistaken, and endeavor to transform into a more enlightened self.

Well, admittedly, the metaphor applies to me. And the skill I am working to acquire, despite the fact that I am set in my ways? It is an important one, a feat I have struggled with, frequently, for my entire life. My ongoing effort … to grow less fearful of huntsman spiders. Apologies to all the other spiders 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, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. Including a trio of instances in the last week. In my own living space. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (as opposed to other children who find them delightful). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to guarantee I never had to engage with any myself, but I still became hysterical if one was obviously in the immediate vicinity as me. Vividly, I recall of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and trying to deal with a spider that had made its way onto the family room partition. I “dealt” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, nearly crossing the threshold (lest it pursued me), and spraying a generous amount of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and disturb everyone in my house.

As I got older, whomever I was in a relationship with or living with was, automatically, the least afraid of spiders between us, and therefore tasked with managing the intruder, while I emitted whimpers of distress and fled the scene. If I was on my own, my method was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to ignore its existence before I had to enter again.

Not long ago, I visited a pal's residence where there was a notably big huntsman who resided within the window frame, for the most part stationary. To be less scared of it, I envisioned the spider as a female entity, a girlie, one of us, just chilling in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. It sounds extremely dumb, but it was effective (somewhat). Or, making a conscious choice to become more fearless proved successful.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I contemplate all the sensible justifications not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they eat things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of nature’s beautiful, non-threatening to people creatures.

Alas, they do continue to walk like that. They move in the deeply alarming and almost unjust way conceivable. The vision of their many legs transporting them at that terrible speed triggers my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They ostensibly only have eight legs, but I believe that multiplies when they get going.

Yet it is no fault of their own that they have frightening appendages, and they have the same privilege to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I have discovered that employing the techniques of working to prevent immediately exit my own skin and retreat when I see one, working to keep composed and breathing steadily, and consciously focusing about their beneficial attributes, has actually started to help.

Just because they are hairy creatures that dart around with startling speed in a way that invades my dreams, is no reason for they warrant my loathing, or my girly screams. I am willing to confess when fear has clouded my judgment and motivated by baseless terror. It is uncertain 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 left in this old dog yet.