Almost all people look forward. The
past is behind. Which is really to say that their natural
inclination to process such thoughts doesn't include influencing the
past. Regretting some actions, or remembering other things fondly,
but nothing more tangible than that. The planning, contingencies,
coordinating, goal setting etc. is all front-loaded. What if the
main reason time travelers avoid obvious interaction is that most
people would *break* given any serious proof of anything other than a
simple linear timeline? Memories are generally regarded as a person's
foundation of who they are – so what happens when you tinker with
the 'unchangeable bedrock' of a person?
Even most time travel shows tend to
assume you travel, get out, and time resumes as normal – what if
it's still? What if you end up having to deal with the past as-is and
with your interference at the same time? What if you still have some
backward temporal momentum exiting your vehicle and have to deal with
retro-causality? What if you have to deal with new 'memories' as
you're interacting with people?
Given all of the above, or even a
fraction of it, a time traveler would have to be a different sort of
person altogether. Someone who didn't get paralyzed by seeming
paradoxes and relying on something more both more concrete and
flexible than an agreed upon series of events.
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