I understand what you say about arachnophobia, but I also can't agree that > appreciating them or even admiring them doesn't change anything about fear of enco

I understand what you say about arachnophobia, but I also can't agree that > appreciating them or even admiring them doesn't change anything about fear of encountering them in certain situations because I used to be afraid of wasps and spiders, and what changed that was precisely the experience of being in close quarters with them and having opportunity to observe reactions ranging from total disinterest to mortal fear. Then I started chasing them around with a camera, in order to take macro shots from six inches away, and discovered that even in those circumstances they really couldn't care less about any human not actively antagonizing them - that the occasions of their lives mean as much to them as those of ours to us. There's a basis for empathy in that, strange as it may seem to say in respect of creatures so superficially different from us. I suppose this is what they call "exposure therapy", when it's done deliberately rather than by happenstance. But whatever we call it, I just couldn't stay scared of these tiny animals that so determinedly and reliably did absolutely nothing to suggest they had any interest in even trying to do me what trivial and evanescent harm they possibly could. After that, it was no great stretch to notice how beautiful and intelligent they actually are. On reflection, if anything it's odd that I ever did become afraid of wasps and spiders. After all, one of my earliest memories is that of sitting on the tailgate of my mom's truck, watching with quiet but avid interest as a mud dauber picked daintily along the slice of pizza I was holding. I also wasn't kidding when I talked elsewhere in this thread about the black widow who set up shop behind our toilet tank a few years later - that literally happened, and while perhaps I might've done my daily business elsewhere had another bathroom been available, there wasn't and it took me no real time to become entirely accustomed to the circumstance. I don't know what changed to induce in adulthood a fear that in childhood I cannot ever recall experiencing, but that's all the more reason for me to think this kind of fear must be amenable to revision. I understand not everyone who experiences such fear will choose to try to revise it, but my experience makes it impossible for me to conclude other than that this is, however implicit, a choice. Losing that fear has certainly made me a happier person, both for its own sake and in that it's made me more able to appreciate beauty than I was before. But perhaps I've not sufficiently considered the good fortune I had in stumbling by happenstance into circumstances that made it possible for me to understand - made it impossible not to understand - how absurd that fear really was. Absent that, I don't know if I'd ever even have thought to try.