Are you sure? I was going to add that the intuition comes from demonstrations we might have seen, where in a series of tubes, regardless of shape, water will be at one level. As in this picture:

https://www.physics.purdue.edu/demos/display_page.php?item=2...

So is it not accurate to say that water does this by oscillating and throwing away energy as parasitic losses, until it equalizes?

Are you saying in general does a system of connected tubes NOT throw off lots of energy as it gets into the equalized state shown?

If it does, I think this fact should also be mentioned when teaching the "water seeks its own level" demonstrated above. (Called Pascal's vases.)