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I firmly hold the belief that it is forever an option to change. I believe you can in fact train a seasoned creature, as long as the experienced individual is willing and eager for knowledge. Provided that the person is prepared to acknowledge when it was in error, and strive to be a better dog.

Alright, I confess, the metaphor applies to me. And the trick I am working to acquire, even though I am decrepit? It is an significant challenge, an issue I have grappled with, often, for my whole existence. The quest I'm on … to become less scared of the common huntsman. My regrets to 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 large, in charge, and the one I run into regularly. This includes on three separate occasions in the recent past. In my own living space. I'm not visible to you, but I'm grimacing with discomfort as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I’ve been working on at least becoming Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (as opposed to other children who are fascinated by them). Growing up, I had a sufficient number of brothers around to make sure 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 unconscious, and attempting to manage a spider that had ascended the living room surface. I “managed” with it by standing incredibly far away, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it chased me), and discharging a generous amount of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it did reach and annoy everyone in my house.

With the passage of time, my romantic partner at the time or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the bravest of spiders out of the two of us, and therefore responsible for handling the situation, 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.

In a recent episode, I stayed at a friend’s house where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the casement, primarily stationary. In order to be less fearful, I conceptualized the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, in our circle, just relaxing in the sun and overhearing us yap. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it had an impact (a little bit). Alternatively, the deliberate resolution to become less scared worked.

Be that as it may, I’ve tried to keep it up. I think about all the rational arguments not to be scared. I am aware huntsman spiders pose no threat to me. I understand they consume things like flies and mosquitoes (creatures I despise). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, non-threatening to people creatures.

Unfortunately, however, they do continue to scuttle like that. They move in the utterly horrifying and somehow offensive way possible. The vision of their numerous appendages transporting them at that alarming velocity induces my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They claim to only have a standard octet of limbs, but I believe that triples when they get going.

However it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – if not more. I’ve found that implementing the strategy of trying not to instantly leap out of my body and retreat when I see one, trying to remain still and breathing, and deliberately thinking about their positive qualities, has proven somewhat effective.

Simply due to the reality that they are hairy creatures that scuttle about at an alarming rate in a way that causes me nocturnal distress, doesn’t mean they deserve my hatred, or my girly screams. It is possible to acknowledge when I’ve been wrong and fueled by irrational anxiety. I doubt I’ll ever reach the “scooping one into plasticware and escorting it to the garden” phase, but one can't be sure. There’s a few years left in this old dog yet.