For me lisp in general was like that. But I just kept on until it clicked (mainly because I was getting sick of hearing all the hype and wanted to fully understand what all the fuss was about). A lot of people talk about when lisp clicks its an ahh-haa moment much like when your first programming language clicks and that is the best way to describe it. When it finally clicks it clicks but you have to put aside so much C rooted concepts and just keep beating Lisp concepts into your head until it clicks.

I once heard C described as learning programming in the constraint of time (e.g A happens first then B) where lisp executes in distance or space (e.g A happens over here and B happens over there). It's probably the best way to describe it but it does not click to somebody that is still thinking in time. It just seems weird and painful. Because you can't do things the way your brain thinks they should do them in the constrain of time.

It finally clicked for me when I build a simple file parser and I think that is a great project to use to understand a lisp.