I suggest Spatial-Consideration Intelligence

The rules I break

I believe I have broken a few rules as I remember the words of one of Anita Baker’s songs – She is probably my best musician artiste, “Rules were meant to be broken,” she first says, then you goes on the say, “So many hearts break the same way too, aw baby, I said that you ain't no exception to the rule, yes sir.”

The rules I have broken are mainly the unwritten ones, the ones I have read or can still remember as instruction even if irritating to the point of awakening that streak of rebelliousness in me, I have rarely dared to infringe.

Now, I do not intend to speak about broken hearts, but the taking the exception to the rule or rules does concern me. I love order, I like to see order around, order especially when I leave my home for whatever activity I have purposed to do or just happened to find myself in.

In the way

Starting with stepping out of my front door and not having to ask someone who has inadvertently felt my doorstep is the place to take a standing nap. Then I get on the street and some friends all decide to walk abreast, which is fine but in their chatting excitement become oblivious of others that you either have to alert them or step dangerously onto the street.

That simple element of awareness which should be a rule written on the fleshy tablets of the heart and branded fierily on the jellies of the cranial grey matter, yet so carelessly ignored. People who knowing it is a doorway and take up the space constricting access.

I’ve seen too many instances of the absence of intelligent engagement of the spaces we occupy too, like finding myself in queues when I was in India and having the person behind me pressing against my person for no particular reason that thankfully my towering height helped when I bellowed down at the person, “Hold your space.”

Know your space

I can remember when I touched the man in front of me in a pub and apologised that I could not put my feet in a bag, after he stepped on my toes. A very strange situation where my size 12 feet (European size 46) knows full well not to egress in the pied-à-terre (literally, space for the feet) of others and then to find someone with much shorter feet unaware of where their feet should be.

Space is probably a European concept more than it is for any other place, but I am probably in error when I realise that queues were not the kind of order to find in the Netherlands, it drove me to distraction and brought out the most English of annoyances in me.

You could not get off a train comfortably because everyone wanted to get on, yet, we need to get off for others to get off. That is where my cane sometimes made a violent acquaintance with the shins of others and behold the way opened before me without obstruction.

Consideration and deportment

Public transport does provide a test case for those who are literally spatially ignorant, people who take up more seats than they should or create impediments to others getting access to other seats especially by putting their bags on the seats, worse still is those who put their feet on the seats despite the fact that there are notices clearly saying they should not.

People who bring their caterwauling music unto public spaces who in their enjoyment create the greatest irritation to others, a total lack of consideration, I say. Then, being a cane user, you can imagine when I get on the London Underground and find that able-bodied people have made a beeline for the priority seats and completely ignore the aged, the infirm, the pregnant or the mobility assisted. Those seats are not for them, that is why the signs are put there.

Other views of space

Space is a matter of dimensions and different dimensions of occupancy, manner, appearance and attitude which demands awareness and consideration. The consideration that if everyone else did what I was doing, what would the world be like.

Literally no public seat is safe from the halitosis-ridden oral excrements of chewing gum that you never venture the underneath of a wooden armrest or under the seat, forget the number of pavements with gum and cigarette butts. The former should be banned as they have so done in Singapore.

It manner of dressing is the being assault in public with the sight of cack-ridden undergarments that should be covered up in this rotten fashion trend of sagging trousers. Beyond that, it is those forget to dress for the body they have and end up dressing for what they want their bodies to be – uncouth and unsightly, you almost think you should wear a sick bag like a colostomy bag at the things that things that invade the sanctity of the senses.

Public decorum

Forget those who do not take a seat to make a call or sent a text message on their mobile phones, so unaware that what they think is walking in a straight line is anything but, some have met great mishap as a result when they divorce themselves from the personal responsibility of knowing that each person being aware of the other and acting accordingly is part of the order we all crave in society and community.

Use the bins, press the button if you are first at the pedestrian crossing lights, stand out of the way, give way to others less able to manoeuvre, be courteous, polite and considerate, the list goes on about how I love things to be and what really piques me.

Defining this intelligence

As I thought about this, I was about to give this sense of awareness and consideration on the matter of space, Spatial Quotient as an additional form of measuring intelligence along with Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Emotional Intelligence (EQ) only to find that Spatial Intelligence is quite a broad field of study amongst other types of intelligence, in what is known as the theory of multiple intelligences, so I back to square one.

Having looked at the nine intelligences listed and the descriptions that follow, for musical–rhythmic, visual–spatial, verbal–linguistic, logical–mathematical, bodily–kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential. I am not convinced this one or a combination of some of these properly address the element of spatial awareness and intuitiveness that I have raised in this blog.

Giving well, taking little

And back to the lyrics I introduced at the beginning of this blog, there is an element of the absence of this intelligence that is expressed in, “So many times we don't give, we take…” whereas, society works on various levels of giving and taking to different degrees that are usually never equal.

I am tempted to suggest, Spatial-consideration intelligence, however, it probably requires more academic rigour from behavioural experts to properly define this or extend the meanings of the previously defined categories.

Space matters, the giving of it, the giving up of it, the taking of it and taking it with clear consideration of others too.