Context

It is astonishing how much context and infrastructure most people need. Without being surrounded by the people and things that they normally are, a majority of individuals flounder. That is probably the main reason why time travel isn't practical for so many. Their lives are built around and are entirely dependent on a more or less static environment. Any quirky fluctuation, like a famous franchise suddenly having a different name, would drive them over the edge.

Any sufficiently grounded time cadet would be relying on very few fixtures. “Food and shelter, maybe gravity” is the kind of rail they require. In the more active time currents, things change – or rather shift – on an almost daily basis. The disorienting thing is that it's not change for the people they interact with, but an almost seamless shift to a new set of similar people with different memories. Again something fundamentally devastating to someone not ready for it. To someone accustom to it, the opposite is more jarring. Life is a flat plain with no edges, a homogeneous soup without landmarks.