Time is not an abstract. It is an actual material, not unlike fabric. It has a beginning and an end, and it has a purpose. The material of time is not unlike a fluid in some respects. It has some of the qualities that a fabric has and is somewhat fluid.

A time traveler must be able, then, to adapt to the fluid environment and to the material environment, while also being compelled by the compressed light. Regardless of the form of substance of your entity, your self, one often hears that beings travel through light in order to travel through time, but in fact the stages (to make it relevant for you) would be solid mass, fluid and light. Then when you get where you are going, you arrive as light, you become fluid and then solid mass.