One Man’s Road Trip From Grief To Peace
Editor’s note: I first met Ben Forman at the Royal Enfield Himalayan 450 launch in Utah a couple of years ago. We struck up a conversation over dinner the first night, that turned into a friendship by the end of the trip. We’ve kept in touch ever since, and he’s shared some amazing stories of riding, life, heartache and hope with me. Ben is a filmmaker, a storyteller, and an avid motorcycle rider. I hope you enjoy his musings here, and I hope you get to see his film sometime this year.
Rob
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Take a deep breath. Exhale.
No, this is not a meditation.
This is just a story, written by a human, about a human experience. Now take another breath and, if you want, take a moment to remember how strange and wonderful it is to be a living, breathing person.
Okay. You can come back now.
Did your brain take you somewhere in the backcountry? On two wheels or four? No stop lights for miles, just the journey?
Yeah. Me too.
I know that’s a slightly silly exercise, but I wanted to start with a reset: something grounded in authenticity… in humanity. Because the same sense of originality is what makes art matter. And it’s the same thing that drives us to ride and explore.
Exploration, real exploration, comes with an appetite for uncertainty and discomfort. Adventure is personal for each of us, as we come with different experiences, risk appetites, and perspectives. Yet what connects us isn’t the type of road we choose, it’s the willingness to leave our comfort zone without knowing if it will work out, how it all will go, or if it was even a good idea.
We just go.
And somewhere along the way, the road stops looking like a road.
Then again, what even is a road? Is it still technically considered “road dirt” when the dust and filth on our faces comes from off-roading? Of course. But it begs the question: What even is a road?
I’m reminded of David Foster Wallace’s “This is Water”, where two young fish swim along and meet an older fish swimming the other way. The older fish nods and says,“Morning, boys. How’s the water?” The two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one looks over at the other and asks, “What the hell is water?”
In that story, the fish have no perspective, no sense of what surrounds them and, in turn, what matters most. To me, that question is part of every motorcycle ride, every journey. It’s what makes a motorcycle such a special machine: it takes you places you never imagined possible. Oftentimes those places are in our heads and hearts more than any patch of tarmac or sweeping lookout.
Then, there are people like the two young fish. The ones who have traveled all over the world but never actually gone anywhere. Because for them, the destination is the only motivation. But for those of us who ride motorcycles, that path was never an option. For us, the journey is the destination- and our joy flows from that, wherever it leads.
For me, I thought I understood the water I was swimming in. Then, in January 2022, I found out I didn’t. My younger brother died in a skiing accident.
Ben (right) with his younger brother Sam (left). Photo by Ben Forman.
Suddenly, the road I traveled seemed foreign. Work seemed pointless. Relationships felt hollow. And for a while, survivor’s guilt ate me alive.
Why my family?
Why me?
With my biological brother no longer alive, two of my chosen brothers saw my pain and asked me to join them in the north reaches of India. Their pitch: two weeks on Royal Enfields, the middle of summer, and the Himalayan Mountains. On paper, it sounded incredible. But my loss was still so fresh that, off paper, it felt wrong. Somehow, I wanted to connect the roads of this journey to the road my brother and I shared. So I turned to my instincts as a film producer. And what ensued became a film about life and death, mountains and motorcycles, brothers and brotherhood, all in honor of my brother Sam’s legacy.
No spoilers, you will have to see the film once it premieres this June in London. But I will share that if I had known the process… if I had known the Himalayas would welcome us with waist-deep water crossings for showers and a blizzard in July… if I had known that editing this movie would reopen my wound every single time, I would have never gone down this road. And yet, it’s our choice to still ride despite the uncertainty that connects us in life and on our motorcycles.
That choice to keep riding became the central theme of the film and an antidote to my grief. And it’s the part of any motorcycle journey that makes it special: the resolve to keep going. Because if I hadn’t, this movie would never exist. How many of your most cherished memories- your favorite rides- could you say the same for?
This film, HIGHER CALLING (much like that ride through the Himalayas) revealed itself as it unfolded. I went in seeking answers but left knowing the answers were inside all along. Likewise, I went with a sense of direction and destination… but experienced something else entirely.
I learned that traveling on no roads was how I could start to find my own road forward again. I learned that “road dirt” is more than the debris that kicks up onto our boots, bikes, and faces. It’s the particles, the memories, the traces of our rides that we carry with us long after the bikes are parked and the thump of the engine has quieted.
That is the spiritual, even sacred quality of the road. Wherever, whatever, expected or not, paved or washed out, our road is what we choose… as long as we just keep going.
Ben Forman
All photos by Ben Forman.
Check out the teaser trailer to Higher Calling here:
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