Success is measured in part by the end result, and in part by the progress.

There is no better progress in working on a time machine – to go back in time to talk to yourself – than to see a future you come back in time, just as you planned.

So clearly it worked!

I considered stopping as soon as I had disappeared. Why keep toiling away, when I know that I will succeed anyway? And hell, if I can’t ruin history, then I can’t ruin the future either.

Later, when I start experiencing the events, flipping from locale to locale, era to era, face to face, I’ll regret being human. Humans are not just meatbags who can survive a horribly grueling thirty seconds in the dead of space, slowly exploding. Humans also doubt.

If I hadn’t doubted myself, or my other self, then maybe I really would have stopped working on the machine. I didn’t. I even searched for an updated version of the schematics. Damn Intel.

Well, progress is slow, because I have yet to get back to warn myself, and fix this whole mess.