Really good.

• Author: Verissimo, Luis Fernando
• Position: The best things in life - Column

Man passes through phases in his brief time on this stage (according to Shakespeare, who] was original only because he was the first to say it). Many things distinguish one phase from another--firmness of the flesh, flexibility of limbs, energy and what one does with it--but what most differentiates the stages of human experience on earth is what a man considers really good at each age. Not what he thinks is just good or even better than good, but what he thinks is better than anything. REALLY good.

If a newborn baby could take part in a conversation with men of varying ages, he would listen patiently to their opinions on the best things in life and at the end say, "Uh, what's really good is Mom."

A more mature baby would disagree immediately.

"What's really good is Dad."

After a certain age, choosing the best in life becomes more difficult. Childhood, for example, is a garden of delights. How to compare a well-thrown top or the voluptuous feel of a marble between your fingers--one of those good ones--or the smell of damp earth or of a new notebook?

Then there are the exotic pleasures: "What's really good is the smell of Vick's VapoRub."

But I think that aside from the opinions of a half dozen normal pre-adolescent Brazilians, the inevitable conclusion you come to is that in this phase, what's really good, better than anything, even better than peeing in the pool, is putting a pass-kick right where you want it.

At the beginning of puberty there is yet another type of indecision. A guy has to pretend to believe that what's really good is a woman (or whatever comes close the first time) but underneath, you have a secret conviction that what's really good is having a fever on Monday morning and not having to go to school. After, yes, comes the phase when there's no discussion about it, "What's really good is sex!"

For many people, this phase lasts until death. Even when sex isn't first on their list of preferences, ("For me sex is first and detective novels are a distant second") it serves as a point of reference. From then on, whenever someone says that something other than sex is "really good," he is probably being admirably hones or...