Any tips for beginner D&D player?

My friend bring me to the game. Im kinda surprised about how much stuff and details are in this game. i start thinking that i will never learn the game properly. Im still not sure how to create my first character and what Race, Class and background to pick (I was considering Dwarf Cleric) overall everything seems pretty "chaotic" from my view. I was reading few stuff from Player's handbook but 318 pages are huge amount of time + i will forgot good amount of stuff from it. still cant even properly imagine how game of D&D looks like.