I have to admit, I found it hard to write this month. I was not sure which topic to chose. I was not sure I could write anything decent. I had self-doubt, and lack of confidence. I lost myself literally and could not find my way back. That is when the inspiration hit me. I identified very much with Dr. Stephen Franklin when he left to go on Walkabout, a tradition where you walk until you find yourself. Once you find yourself you have a conversation, according to Franklin, and it is this conversation and knowledge of self that Franklin seeks.
At this point Franklin has lost his way. He is addicted to stims and he hates himself for the addiction. For so long he was never able to admit he had a problem, until it started affecting his work, which was his whole life. Once he came to that realization, that he needed the stims to be who he was, then he knew he was lost. He did not know who Dr. Stephen Franklin was. He could not have answered the Vorlon question "Who are You?", one of the most important questions to answer. Who was Dr. Stephen Franklin? Drug addict? Doctor? Or maybe not since he let poor judgment get in the way of his job and his whole life. What else was there? What do you want - the Shadows ask. And Franklin cannot answer that one either. The easy answer is himself back again. But you have to answer the first question in order to arrive at the second question.
So he went Downbelow to walk and find himself. Along the way he became something he did not want to be. Withdrawal set in, and he was a sick man, a junkie who needed a fix, just like so many in Downbelow. He became part of the crowd, part of the "group", the ones who were lost, who were stuck "downbelow" because they had no other place they could go. He did not want to see his friends, who would come and find him to see how he was, and at one point made a deal with Ivanova that if he gave her information, then they had to leave him alone and not come see him again.
In Shadow Dancing, he was sitting down, when a family walked by and a girl lost her ball. It fell in front of Franklin who returned it to the girl standing in front of him. Then the mother yanked her away, the revulsion she felt at seeing Franklin, a resident of Downbelow plainly apparent in her eyes.
