Hanging by a thread

I got into work a short time ago.  Sitting here at my desk I caught some motion out of the corner of my eye.  It's a small brown spider that's trying to lower itself from the ceiling.

I say 'trying' because it looks like the point from which he (I dunno why I'm assuming it's a male.) decided to start is apparently up near the vent that's among the ceiling panels.  As a result, when he lowered himself a little ways, he got caught in the air blowing out that side of the vent.  This has him moving all over the place on the end of his little string of web.   The further he lowers himself, the worse it seems to get.  Obviously he doesn't much like this because he'll lower himself down til it gets particularly bad, then go scooting back up the thread again.

The little guy is stubborn (maybe that's proof he's male - stubborn and insists he knows what he's doing), I'll give him that.  I'm torn between letting him work things out himself and trying to help him out by catching him on some paper and setting him on the floor.  I'm not really eager to go over there and risk having him land on me.  I'm sure he's harmless, but I still aint too keen on a lil spider running down my shirt or spending the day in my hair or something.

I'm sure there's some kind of cool metaphor to everyday life that can be drawn from the little guy's plight, but I'm not awake enough to figure it out yet.

Hmm.  Since I really want to get some coffee, I guess I'll see if I can't help the lil bugger out of the mess he's gotten himself into.