Spiders, Australia and the danger of too little too soon
The Huntsman is a large, generally good natured, fleet-footed (90 cm per second) arachnid that loves hiding between very flat surfaces. In fact, we even had a charming female of the species living under a yellow raincoat that my dad affectionately called “Gertrude”. But despite the fact that it is neither particularly venomous nor aggressive, the Huntsman has been cited among Australia’s most deadly creatures, for one simple reason – it has caused the deaths of as many human beings as any Australian spider, without so much as raising a fang….but how?
The Huntsman’s penchant for enclosed spaces, and the fact that many an Australian has been known to leave the odd car window open during the blazing Australian Summer, has lead to a number of unfortunate tragedies among motorists.
Imagine you’re driving along, a beautiful summers’ sun shining brightly in your face. You reach up to lower the sun visor, when suddenly a ten-centimeter blur of abdomen and legs falls on to you lap. Understandably, the last thing most people would be concentrating on in that moment is the road, even more so if they are arachnophobic. You can count yourself lucky if you snap back early enough to veer back onto your side of the road.
To extend this to human relations, “Dropping the huntsman” can be interpreted as sharing information with people that is incomplete, out of context or premature, and which distracts or frightens them without offering either enlightenment or relief. Dropping the Huntsman can cause a knee-jerk shift of focus, with potentially detrimental consequences. Like telling someone they have cancer based on the results of a single test. We often find this happening in cafés and corridors – especially in a time of uncertainty such as the current economic crisis.
The long-term danger of partial, premature disclosure of information, even if the aim is to offer people as much transparency as possible, is the development of phobias of not only spiders, but cars, driving and even the road itself.
Sometimes, a little information can be a lot worse than none at all. After all, you can only see so much through a keyhole.
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