That is, if I am working for weeks or months without making visible progress, but I have successfully delivered the last X things on time, why are you worried about what I look like?
So, yes, people should grow into longer timelines that they can appear to be slacking off. I expect the tasks we've given the newest intern, as an example, to be something that can show daily progress. In large, because it will likely need daily coaching. As you get on the larger projects, though, asking me to break everything down to daily chunks is itself a chore that may add significantly to effort.
Worse, it encourages people to fall for the sunken costs fallacy. If you burned down all of that effort, many folks are hesitant to take any of it back. If I haven't let you know about the small progress I made on the last experiment I did, then I am as likely to abandon the path and try something else if I am confident it will be better.
I'm not worried what the OP looks like, or generally what I look like for that matter, but they were worried what they look like. I just dispute the claim that standups are the root of their anxiety about that.
If you're working heads-down for weeks or months without standups, people are still likely to wonder if you're stuck/ineffective/blocked if you're not communicating in more detail than "it's still in progress."