Compared to other languages, 'lisp syntax' is very minimal. It is just a prefix notation with parenthesis for enclosing expressions, the first item usually being a function. There are only a handful of special forms to learn, which deviate from this.

The real power of lisp IMHO lies in:

  - Repl driven, dynamic development. This is hard to explain. Its like chocolate. You have to try it. You either love it or hate it.

  - Macros. This is again enabled by the 'lisp syntax. Actually lack of it...'. 

Here is an example I recently ran into when checking out Hy

https://github.com/hylang/hy/discussions/2608#discussioncomm...

This shows how much you can abstract, hide the noise without any runtime penalties..