The creativity faucet and meditation

I was reading an article written by Julian Shapiro on creativity, where he describes it as a "creativity faucet"

Visualize your creativity as a backed-up pipe of water. The first mile is packed with wastewater. This wastewater must be emptied before the clear water arrives.

To get to the good ideas, you need to unleash all of the bad ones. I love this metaphor and it got me thinking about how similar it is to meditation ( I had this realization while meditating, how meta )

Many people I've spoken to who have failed to make meditation a habit, complain to me how whenever they sit down to meditate they just can't keep random thoughts from popping into their head.

However, this is meditation. Similar to the creativity faucet, to get to a clear state of mind, you first need to unclog the pipes in your head and confront the backlog of todos, anxieties, and fears that you have been putting off and repressing. Only once you've enabled each item to surface in your mind, and give it the attention it deserves will your mind suddenly start to be still and quiet.

If you accept this initial state as not just necessary, but integral to the meditative process, the journey becomes the destination.