The main reason to start with Arduino, specifically an ATmega328P based one, is its popularity that has resulted in a massive ecosystem supporting Arduino users. There are many things about the Arduino that suck from the point of view of an experienced developer, but its got the mass market penetration, and wealth of add-on shields, hardware libraries and tutorials to appeal to a novice. However you need some aptitude for programming.
If you've ever programmed an 80's era 8 bit home computer, or done any C programming for a resource limited system, you wont have any issues that cant be resolved with a little research or a quick question here or on one of the many specialist Arduino forums. If 'programming' a VCR is outside of your comfort zone, then forget about it and stick to analog electronics!
I would suggest a UNO clone with a socketed ATmega328P (or even a genuine official one if you are rich and want to support Arduino.cc anonymously), simply so you know you can easily replace the chip if you let the holy smoke out.
To prepare in advance for accidents, get a couple of spare PDIP ATmega328P chips, either from a specialist Arduino supplier, preloaded with the Arduino bootloader - 16MHz version, or blank from your preferred regular distributor. If they are blank, set up the Arduino with the ArduinoISP sketch to burn them with the UNO bootloader.
See:
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoToBreadboard and
https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/ArduinoISP Once they have the bootloader installed, check them in your Arduino board with the Blink sketch, then put the two spares aside. Unless you are really unlucky and fry the USB<=> logic level serial chip on your Uno, you've then got some chances to fix it if you do something stupid like blow out an I/O pin.
Also, you can easily use those spare chips in your own projects - simply prototype it on the Uno then move the programmed chip to your own board and replace the Uno's one with one of the spares.
Once you've dabbled your toe in the Arduino waters, you'll have a much better idea of where you want to go from here - whether its deeper into Arduino-land or abandoning it totally for a more powerful MCU.