The Questions as posed:
What's behind my resistance to "happiest Days"? It's not the day that matters, but its granular content — the bits of joy recognized — and if I examine the long succession of such moments, they seem to come along in a more or less constant flow of epiphanies great and small, in various guises and media:
One never knows when such realizations will arrive; they're often surprises that happen while something else is being sought, serendipities in the fullest sense, in which I find myself on the cusp of discovery, often with a book that promises new understanding, or a new instrument that unlocks sonic potentials, or while stalking with camera in hand, in search of visual epiphany...
Recently, the last chowder, constructed last week for guests: I absolutely NAILED it... and the next morning, perfect blue corn and almond flour waffles (to accommodate a guest's non-gluten food religion). And most days there's something that reaches toward that sense of epiphany.
I'm reminded of Max Nigh's report of a workshop his employer (IBM) sent him to, in which he was informed that everything should be a Peak Experience (this was around 1970, Maslow-inflected Big Sur Californian New Age claptrap). Max was unimpressed.