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I firmly hold the belief that it is always possible to evolve. My view is you truly can teach an old dog new tricks, as long as the mature being is open-minded and eager for knowledge. So long as the person is ready to confess when it was wrong, and strive to be a improved version.

Alright, I confess, I am the old dog. And the lesson I am attempting to master, although I am a creature of habit? It is an major undertaking, something I have grappled with, repeatedly, for my all my days. I have been trying … to develop a calmer response toward huntsman spiders. Pardon me, all the different eight-legged creatures that exist; I have to be pragmatic about my capacity for development as a human. The focus must remain on the huntsman because it is sizeable, dominant, and the one I see with the greatest frequency. This includes three times in the recent past. In my own living space. Though unseen, but I’m shaking my head at the very thought as I type.

I'm skeptical I’ll ever reach “enthusiast” status, but I’ve been working on at least achieving a baseline of normalcy about them.

A deep-seated fear of spiders dating back to my youth (in contrast to other children who are fascinated by them). During my childhood, I had plenty of male siblings around to make sure I never had to confront any myself, but I still freaked out if one was clearly in the immediate vicinity as me. I have a strong memory of one morning when I was eight, my family still asleep, and facing the ordeal of a spider that had ascended the lounge-room wall. I “dealt” with it by positioning myself at a great distance, practically in the adjoining space (for fear that it chased me), and spraying a significant portion of bug repellent toward it. It didn’t reach the spider, but it managed to annoy and irritate everyone in my house.

As I got older, 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 dealing with it, while I produced frightened noises and ran away. When finding myself alone, my method was simply to exit the space, plunge the room into darkness and try to erase the memory of its being 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 made its home in the casement, mostly just stationary. In order to be less scared of it, I conceptualized the spider as a 'girlie', a gal, one of us, just lounging in the sun and listening to us yap. Admittedly, it appears extremely dumb, but it was effective (somewhat). Put another way, the deliberate resolution to become less scared proved successful.

Whatever the case, I've made an effort to continue. I contemplate all the rational arguments not to be scared. It is a fact that huntsman spiders are not dangerous to humans. I understand they consume things like insect pests (my mortal enemies). I know they are one of the world's exquisite, benign creatures.

Yet, regrettably, they do continue to scuttle like that. They move in the most terrifying and borderline immoral way possible. The appearance of their many legs propelling them at that terrible speed causes my caveman brain to kick into overdrive. They ostensibly only have a standard octet of limbs, but I maintain that multiplies when they are in motion.

However it cannot be blamed on them that they have unnerving limbs, and they have just as much right to be where I am – possibly a greater claim. I have discovered that taking the steps of making an effort to avoid instantly leap out of my body and flee when I see one, attempting to stay calm and collected, and intentionally reflecting about their positive qualities, has begun to yield results.

Just because they are furry beings that scuttle about extremely quickly in a way that haunts my sleep, is no reason for they deserve my hatred, or my high-pitched vocalizations. It is possible to acknowledge when fear has clouded my judgment and motivated by irrational anxiety. It is uncertain I’ll ever make it to the “catching one in a Tupperware container and taking it outside” phase, but miracles happen. A bit of time remains left in this old dog yet.