Maybe it is good to use both the personal blog and public spaces like this. It is great that finally we have a common space for posting Clojure namespaces as notebooks, where different authors can be conveniently visible to each other, respond and follow up each other, and contribute to a somewhat unified set of knowledge.
One important detail is that in Lisps like Clojure, printed values can usually be read back as code. So, the REPL is really a read-eval-print-LOOP.
Another detail is that the whole culture of the language, oriented towards immutable data, makes it very easy to evaluate almost any sub-expression in your code, which makes the whole code introspectable in a very playful and dynamic way.
Eventually, it may be a good idea to try both Clojure and Python.
Personally I find Clojure's approach towards data very refreshing. It does require an open mind and a mindset different than usual. Eventually, this can bring joy, simplicity and power.
Clojure's community is certainly smaller than Python's, but some say it is very friendly.
Below are some beginner-friendly places to chat about it.
If you wish, let us chat there, dive into the details, and think how you could begin exploring.
CIDER has been the best programming environment I have experienced (probably haven't tried enough of SLIME though). It combines coding with dynamic experimentation in such a fun way.
For literate programming, the Clojure/Clojurescript ecosystem keeps bringing up fascinating environments (in addition to CIDER+Org-mode and Clojupyter).
Clojure's ML/stats ecosystem is moving fast. Several important libraries are under construction and will mature in few months. Imho, it is worth following this year, for anyone interested in languages for ML/stats.
The way Tablecloth unifies column processing and row processing in a functional way is so elegant.