I learned the basics for org mode. I invested a bit of time to learn one small corner of the default emacs ecosystem, and every second was worth it. Since then, I've continued to explore its use as a text editor (and it keeps getting better and better). There's a bit of a learning curve for just the basics, and it's understandable that you don't want to deal with that. Just the basics can go a long way with org mode, though.

With org mode, everything is plain text. This should go a long way to easing your worries about getting stuck in a groove. Lots of folks take notes in markdown. It's the same kind of thing.