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I firmly hold the belief that it is always possible to evolve. My view is you truly can train a seasoned creature, as long as the experienced individual is open-minded and willing to learn. Provided that the person is ready to confess when it was mistaken, and work to become a better dog.

Well, admittedly, I am the old dog. And the trick I am trying to learn, although I am decrepit? It is an major undertaking, an issue I have battled against, often, for my entire life. I have been trying … to grow less fearful of the common huntsman. Pardon me, all the other spiders that exist; I have to be realistic about my potential for change as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is imposing, commanding, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. Encompassing three times in the last week. Within my dwelling. Though unseen, but a shudder runs through me and grimacing as I type.

It's unlikely I’ll ever reach “fan” status, but my project has been at least attaining Normal about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders since I was a child (in contrast to other children who adore them). Growing up, I had plenty of male siblings around to ensure I never had to engage with any directly, but I still became hysterical if one was obviously in the general area as me. One incident stands out of one morning when I was eight, my family slumbering on, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had crawled on to the lounge-room wall. I “handled” with it by standing incredibly far away, nearly crossing the threshold (for fear that it ran after me), and discharging a significant portion of insect spray toward it. The spray failed to hit the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

In my adult life, whoever I was dating or cohabiting with was, as a matter of course, the most courageous of spiders in our pairing, and therefore responsible for handling the situation, while I produced frightened noises and beat a hasty retreat. In moments of solitude, my method was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to ignore its presence before I had to return.

In a recent episode, I visited a companion's home where there was a particularly sizable huntsman who resided within the window frame, primarily stationary. To be more comfortable with its presence, I imagined the spider as a female entity, a one of the girls, one of us, just relaxing in the sun and eavesdropping on us yap. It sounds extremely dumb, but it worked (a little bit). Or, actively deciding to become more fearless proved successful.

Be that as it may, I've endeavored to maintain this practice. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. I know huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I recognize they prey upon things like insect pests (creatures I despise). It is well-established they are one of the world's exquisite, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to move like that. They move in the deeply alarming and somehow offensive way imaginable. The vision of their many legs carrying them at that frightening pace induces my primordial instincts to enter panic mode. They are said to only have eight legs, but I maintain that triples when they move.

However it isn’t their fault that they have scary legs, and they have an equal entitlement to be where I am – perhaps even more so. My experience has shown that taking the steps of trying not to immediately exit my own skin and flee when I see one, attempting to stay composed and breathing steadily, and deliberately thinking about their beneficial attributes, has proven somewhat effective.

Just because they are fuzzy entities that dart around at an alarming rate in a way that invades my dreams, does not justify they merit my intense dislike, or my shrieks of terror. I can admit when my reactions have been misguided and driven by unfounded fear. I’m not sure I’ll ever attain the “trapping one under a cup and relocating it outdoors” stage, but one can't be sure. A bit of time remains left in this seasoned learner yet.