It’s finally happened. My mum is on Facebook. The days of casual flirtation, boredom relief and general chitter chatter without having to explain every movement and potential life change in chronic detail are over. Nanna is now posting on walls, adding friends and listing herself as married and into The Levellers. It was a matter of time before we went over that cliff, but now it’s here i’ll just have to cope and keep her on my limited profile i use for stalkers.

I’m just on one of those 24hrs when i have too much energy and enthusiasm but lacking the will to indulge it somehow. A bit like having a heavy automatic break pedal depressed when you’re accelerating. I’m grateful for what i have. Truly, honestly grateful. Every day that goes on allows me to delight in even the worst circumstances just by seeing how everything fits neatly into place, piece by piece., and how my life swells with talented people flooding into my life. That’s often how i know how blessed i am, because i am surrounded by new faces attracted to me from the way i am and what i want to do in this life, as well as old ones in support and laconic encouragement (if that isn’t an oxymoron).

I’m finding that the first 30 minutes of the day are absolutely crucial as i have a pattern embedded in me to default back to being very negative the moment i wake up. I don’t know why exactly, but i suspect it’s a hangover from my school days as up until recently it didn’t feel like there was a lot to be waking up excited about. So i’m forcing myself into a new routine of positive affirmations, getting out into the air as soon as possible, praying every morning before i do anything else, and putting on positive material (e.g. Joel Osteen) as the first thing i see or do to set me up nicely for the chaotic battle than can be this life. You’ve got to be grateful, thankful and also declare your faith in who you are and what’s coming your way.

And that brings me on to a quick mention of our tour of the North – as there are so many people we have to see (and meet for the first time, too), the only thing i can do before my trip to Israel in December is to try and squeeze everything in to a few days’ road trip. Amongst those we need to pop in on are Neil (Sheffield), Emma (Scunthorpe), Kate (Bradford), Chloe & Jake’s family (Bradford), Suz (Glasvegas) and the police in Hull. There are more but i can’t be bothered to list them all. If you’re nearby and live up there, drop me a line as we can all hook up, drink the night sway and celebrate everything we have to be grateful for in these strange lives of ours.

To give you an idea of why i love living my 7-day work/celebration life you can leer in voyeuristically when i say it’s punctuated by a continuous stream of phone calls, emails and messages with wonderful and talented people who i love having around me and love helping to get where they need to be. There’s nothing i love more than to be hustling and bustling, juggling ideas, dates, deals and exchanges between each other and watching the natural connections and patterns happen between them all in real-time. You could say that they are satellites orbiting in a gravitational pull around planet Alex.

Today alone i look back on all the people who weaved in and out of me and you can’t help but be grateful. I never realise the sheer number of people who speak to me every day. In the morning a guy (James) made contact with me because he has a new screenplay he’s selling in to the studios, and he wants to concentrate on movie funding and biz dev full time. I need an exec producer, and not only is he the right person appearing at the right time, he’s totally one of us. He even went to the concert i wanted to go to as a kid and loved the same bands in his teens.

My nephew calls me to tell me he loves me (aww); Jenny introduces me to a friend she wants me to help as he’s raising funds for child mortality research; Rob and i talk about winding up a record deal with Roadrunner; Neil send over his screenplays for 2 short films; Jess wants me to come for lunch, misses me and wants to bring her presenter friend to meet me; my mum asks me for help adding her business contacts to LinkedIn; Jake calls me to talk over fixes and get recording advice; Smiv mentions me in his latest video and i invite him to come to the movie summit on Thursday; Clare asks me to help her with her friend’s PC and goes out of her way to thank me; i’m the first person Virgil speaks to after he wakes up at 5pm.

Joby and i go over weeks of things as he’s rendering 6 edits and negotiating with a Sultan’s daughter; Kate introduces me to a new bunch of TV maker friends; Stef introduces me to her friend at Sony, Jodie, and wants to bring her for lunch on Thursday to talk over music career ideas; Persia sends me the best txt of the month which makes me laugh out loud as we yadder back and forth; Hailey texts me saying “hello you dirty little bitch” before she goes to bed; and the back-end of the evening just sparkles because of a frantically excited and hilarious chat with crazy-chemistry Caroline that i don’t think either of us really want to end. As we speak i’m chatting to James, sending Emma a message about how genuinely beautiful she looks, and working with Virgilio on the latest mixes over the web. I daren’t look over my todo list.

How on earth i ended up in some bizarre message-swapping lesbian porn fantasy scenario with Persia and Caroline i will never know. It’s a tribute to their insanity and very twisted sense of humour. Bring on the HG version of that movie.

One of the most inspirational stories is Virgilio’s, and he amazes me with his talent so much that its virtually blinding. He speaks in music, thinks in music and is almost totally spiritual in his love and awe of music. I spend a few hours hacking a mix, and he just works for an hour or so on the same one, bringing out the best quality mastered sound you can imagine, as well as telepathically getting the sound the band wanted. He just feels it and knows it intuitively without thinking. Working with him to build his vision for UseYourEars.com has been a privilege as being near someone who is realising his dream is within reach is just extraordinary. Not only has he fought to build it for 8 years, it’s bigger than he expected.

I catalysed it this year as he didn’t have the technical know-how to make it happen fast, whereas i did. I didn’t have to help him or spend such a massive amount of time on it, but i saw a genuine and talented guy giving something his all and believing in a vision bigger than the world around him. I saw someone who spends his life going out of his way to help other people just because he wants to help, and the same guy trying to help a whole planet of musicians. But also a massively talented producer, engineer, instrumentalist and visionary who needed someone to make it happen for him. Someone who helps others deserves someone to help him. All it took was for me to notice and believe, and the rest was easy.

I spoke to Joby tonight and he was telling me how he was the only person who stopped to pick up a massively injured and emaciated greyhound on the side of the road on a country lane whilst everyone else looked on and drive by. These are the people i want in my life. Both those two characters are so talented it’s disgusting. They also happen to be incredible people in their own right who are spiritual, enthused and understand there is a bigger picture to who they are, and how the way they live affects others.

Take one look at V and you’ll probably just see a genius languishing in the body of a scruffy hippy with a heart of gold, but who do you know who you could help, right now? When you help someone, they are inclined to help someone else in return, forming a chain. When you do good, it lasts forever and shakes generations of people as they all search out to repay the favour somewhere, somehow, to someone.

My point is that you have things and know things that could help others, as they do for you too. So to create that world of wonder, seek out people you can actively trade your skills and experience with for projects so you both get to reach your dreams. You do something for them, and they do something for you. You both have goals, and an agenda, so work together in a pact that sees you both help each other make it. Do it with whole groups of people at a time. You soon find the list of things you can exchange is larger than you can cope with as hybrids of things appear and you keep growing to form new areas of interest and co-operate on new ideas. I try to do it with everyone i know.

You help me on this, i’ll help you on that. If we work together, we can get 500% instead of 50% on our own, and we get to become best friends too in the process and inspire others to do the same. Interdependence is a higher principle and rewarding yourself with celebrations after succeeding is just one part of the deal. You encourage each other like gym buddies, share common goals and have double the fulfilment from helping others and twice the amount of achievement. Imagine what you could do when you’re in 10 deals like that at once. Then imagine 30, and you have what’s formed in my life, and why i am so blessed and grateful.

How can you dare lose hope with those types of people around you and being inundated with their joys, hopes, enthusiasm, failings and successes? How can you not be grateful? Everyone has someone they want to introduce to me, and i love that. Maybe one day it will all fall apart, but for now, i’m grateful. I’ve got all the friends i need, all the romantic tension i need, and more hope than i know what to do with. Their passion, vision and enthusiasm rubs off on me even when they’re not there. Build a world of talented enthusiastic people and guess what? You feel great every day. A cycle of endless encouragement, compliments, mutual support/appreciation and kindness forms like a storm. You do something good for someone, they do something good for you (if you judge the right character to help in the first place) and you whip up prosperity and momentum instead of shit.

The converse/adverse of that is also true – there is an immense peace and freedom that comes with throwing all the bullshit you don’t want or need right off the side of the boat. No guilt, no obligations, just a decision to prioritise your focus and choose not to care about what doesn’t matter. Everyone else is responsible for themselves and you can care from a distance as they do it themselves, as they should. Off the side of the boat it goes.

And that’s the way we have to be. Don’t fight fire with fire – return good for bad. If someone does you wrong, fight back by going out of your way to something good for someone else in return. If someone deserves a break, be their break. If they’ve been waiting, crash through the door. Do something unique, unexpected and wonderful for someone who deserves it, without provocation or being prompted. If you sow good, you will reap a harvest of good. If you set an example by helping, complimenting or being interested, that person will do the same for someone else and start a chain reaction. Do it for enough people and suddenly you have a storm.

But you are the biggest winner because it all comes back to you, and keeps you in a positive frame of mind. When everyone knows each other, you can see the effects of your faith, your words and your heart on the people around you. They all start to pick up on it and encourage each other through a new atmosphere of hope and enthusiasm. All that’s needed is someone to kick it off. People are moved by the smallest of things because we live in a very harsh and critical world where even the tiniest of emotional charity is a flood in a desert where everyone presumes everyone else gets all the comfort they need, when in fact they get nothing at all.

You need to make effort with your conversations and what you give. Always find something to love about something and catch them doing something right so you can praise them and encourage them. Tell them why they are special and who you believe they can be as no-one arrives in their final successful form all packaged up for you to admire. We’re always growing and that person you doubt could very well be the incredible hero you want – but maybe will never get there without that time they remember you took to tell them, praise them and encourage them to be it. Without it, they may never have had the push they needed. You may be the key to someone’s destiny and excellence actually taking place.

It costs you nothing and doesn’t take any time. There’s no reason not to do it. If you want to be loved, you have to love. If you want praise, praise someone so they can praise you back. If you want to feel special, make someone else feel special. If you want to be encouraged, encourage someone. Choose the right people to lavish your love, kindness, generosity and admiration on – someone who is pure-hearted, warm and helps others unselfishly because they want to see others grow and they have a bigger picture vision of the world they want to live in. Most of our painful experiences because we give our pearls to swine in terrible mistakes of judgement in people’s characters. A thumbfui of discernment is worth a pound of comfort.

One of the most fascinating characters in the Bible is David, the King of Israel, and the Psalmist. Psalms is essentially just a huge volume of beautiful poetry, as the king was many things. David was a weak shepherd boy runt who was chosen by God ahead of every other viable candidate as scripture records the Father claiming he was “a man after mine own heart.” He was exiled for years, stole another man’s wife to became an adulterer, suffered the death of his children and assassination attempts by those close to him, but eventually rose to become the greatest leader the children of Israel ever had.

Of course David is most famed for the incident with Goliath, but as a man he was fascinating. Not only was he a cunning, wise and vicious warrior, he was also a gifted musician, writer and wealthy politician who created a well-loved and respected empire the likes of which had never been seen before. His writings in the Old Testament are essentially him pouring out his heart to the Father at the best and worst moments of his life. What’s most fascinating about him though was his attitude to Goliath. Whilst everyone else was scared stupid and told him to keep quiet, the young shepherd walked out with a few stones in front of thousands of men and defiantly asked “Who is this uncircumcised philistine?” in total contempt. He had no fear. He even brought extra stones to kill Goliath’s brothers with.

That kind of courage is inspirational. Now i’m not saying all of us can be like David, but what he did that day was to breathe a new song into the hearts of those around him with the strength of his conviction and a total reliance on the Father, mentally separated from the fear all around him. God choose and builds leaders, not us, and He always picks the most unusual and unlikely people you would never expect and believe in. Why does He do that? So you know it’s Him. Why doesn’t He show up until the worst circumstances? So you know it’s Him, not just the tide of fortune.

A week ago i realised how far i’d come, truly, for the first time. A few years ago the girl i was with and i lost a child. The circumstances don’t matter, but the effect is the same. When i found out i was going to be a dad, i was overwhelmed and just cried in shame, guilt and despair for hours. All i could keep hearing myself saying was “i don’t deserve to be a dad” and i had no idea why. At some point you are supposed to put the worry away for excitement, but in me it just brought out immense darkness. I guess my dad had imprinted on me that i wasn’t worth anything and i wouldn’t be any good as a dad because i wasn’t good child or man either. I’ve also been very aware for a long time that i am carrying his programming and am terrified of being as thoughtless and absent as he was with me.

Something just clicked. Zair and I were looking through YouTube together for Airwolf videos and clowning around as we always do when i go back and babysit occasionally. I picked him up and put him on my lap as we yaddered together about whether Airwolf was faster than a “shelfbomber” (he refuses to say “Stealthbomber” properly), and i was there holding him, just totally loving him for the amazing little guy he is. Then it hits me. I’m going to be a really good dad. I can do this. Totally out of the blue. I just felt it. I wasn’t teary or anything, just in awe of how easy it was and how natural it felt just to love the little guy there and then.

When i look back to where i was, i can’t believe how far i’ve come. I may not be exactly where i want to be, but i can give thanks that i am not where i used to be. I have the same perspective on 2008 - I have no idea what fucking planet i was on or what was wrong with me in the earlier part of this year, but thank God i’m not there anymore. Never again. I can safely say that the Alex Cameron that entered January will not be the same one leaving in December.

I’ve started to notice a strange phenomenon in those who have been against me too, and angry/critical people in general. They all have something n common that is very interesting – they are all afraid. The chip on their shoulder, their negativity, their bitterness and their motivation and drive to put you down comes from being terrified. Like wounded animals forced into a corner they lash out. The more successful you are, the more scared they become of how crap they look. Everything they do is ruled by “what if” scenarios that run rampant through their hearts and minds. They’ve decided the world is a scary terrible place that they will get hurt in if they step out of the front door without body armour, and fight anyone who threatens them.

When you understand that, it’s not possible to be hurt by rejection or the hurtful things they say and do. They are just ruled by fear and dripping in it. It’s their primary motivation and cancer they are riddled with that gives them orders, causes them to react and punish themselves, ruins their relationships, makes them try to have some kind of impact/importance, and discolours them from making anything of themselves. All of those people who criticise you, reject you, look down on you or actively try to discourage you with their doubt and lack of faith are scared people. Massively frightened inside. Terrified and ready to lash out and put anything good down. All because there is a little kid inside them who is throwing a fit out of feeling like they are going to get hurt or aren’t good enough.

Kings have a special distance; a special wisdom and calm that is above the daily chaos and thinks differently. I lapsed back into my negative critical ways recently and regretted it as it didn’t help that i was right and had proved the rest wrong as most people will stick to their false beliefs out of pure stubbornness and pride. When i changed tack to finding a solution to the argument that satisfied both sides, i realised most people just want to express their feelings on something before they are ready to work on how to solve a problem. But that’s the way you have to be. You have to look at both sides and find a way to build something that respects and empowers both sides. Solomon knew that all too well.

I’m not saying i’m a king, as obviously i’m not. But the thinking is entirely above the usual bullshit and focused on the bigger issues at hand. I’ve noticed more and more people are behaving to me like i am a leader, whether its joking about me being their “boss”, thanking me again and again for even calling them or just coming straight out with their beliefs in me. It’s humbling. You’d think it would be an egomaniac’s dream but the truth is that when you realise there is the hand of someone bigger on your life, you know all too well how very small you are. The more you know, the more you realise you don’t know.

The older you get, the less time you realise you have and also how naive you were to assume you knew so much. Only when you get onto the ground to actually do it rather than theorising about it do you realise what Herculean tasks the very basics are. Many people depend on you – emotionally, materially, spiritually, physically and financially. Your goals change and you have to sacrifice yourself for the good of others because it is the right thing to do. They can’t see you feeling like giving up as they will do the same. Your silence makes them lose heart and faith. Their world changes once you are around in that they feel more confident and safe, even if they can’t describe how or why.

We didn’t produce Jake’s band just to help someone else out; we did it give everyone involved a new sense of hope, inspiration and direction. I don’t write for myself, i write that it may touch someone’s heart somewhere and they pass it on to someone else. We don’t link and patch people in together for money or personal gain, rather that it generates new hope and connections for everyone as we all reach out together. Everything we do affects someone else somehow and can find its way around the world in a second if we just take a few minutes out to step out from the normal everyday dreary world and make some kind of a difference in someone else’s life, no matter how small, as there are no small things.

If there is a king in me, he showed himself this year in the midst of chaos and adversity. I’ve learnt that its only those times when we can reach the greatest parts of ourselves as its when they are most needed. Adversity produces character and draws out strength. Criticism and rejection bring out persistence. Dark times draw out empathy, needs and humility. Harshness draws out compassion. Anger draws out change, bitterness draws our forgiveness. All these things that we see as destructive actually are the catalysts and drivers for the good things we need to practice and revel in. They are triggers and natural mechanisms that are essential if we are to grow as human beings.

You may be going through a lot right now, but ask yourself what is happening. Are your circumstances drawing out something new in you? Something good? If they are, why are you fighting it when it’s good news? Why are you resenting it? Would those things arrive when everything was going smoothly and you were lying on the couch? If the bad things are causing you to do good, or you are choosing to do good in response, is it suffering anymore, or is it salvation? Goodbye money-obsession with the credit crunch, and hello again to the things that actually matter.

When things are darkest is when you are most likely to notice beauty; the contrast is at its strongest. Artists make their best works when strained and affected by their situation. You may be in your very finest hour and not know it. You may be someone’s hidden saviour and have done something for them that you will never know caused the massive chain reaction that changed theirs and others’ worlds. You can’t afford to neglect anything or let any of it pass you by. You have to recognise the moment and act, because you’re not here to look on at the amusement arcade whilst the world rides on the attractions. You have to design the arcade, and make decisions about how you enjoy the ride.

A king knows his people, and suffers with them. Heroes are born in tragedies. The least likely people can be the most important and consequential. There is a king and queen in us all just waiting to be enthroned so we can inspire others to do the same. But no-one of any note or prominence had a cosy life as their life was designed to train them for what they would encounter later. Everything in your life was put there deliberately in order to train and promote you to who you will need to be at the times in the future where someone needs you to step out and lead them through the darkness into a new world where what was impossible is suddenly possible. Don’t resent your past when it was deliberately there to make you into the right person you need to be. No king or queen was born that way. They had to learn the role and be carved out of the rock to find the diamond inside.

The wise will understand what i mean when i saw that where there is a king, there will be his queen. And as i said to Persia, only the heart of a queen can know the voice of a king.

Start the fires let the world know their invited
I won’t fight it I will never be defeated
Tell the liars They will never be believers
I won’t fight it I will never be defeated

“Kalifornia” by The Subways