A few things to consider: * Immutable by default. * Not OOP, if that's your thing * Access to jvm libraries * Good concurrency model * Clojurians slack is excellent, your questions are often answered by core language maintainers * Clojurescript is great

On macros, they are not discouraged, it is just encouraged to use them only when needed. Lots of very useful libraries are based on them, and much of the core language is too.