Knowing how to live and how to die are important. But more important than anything else is knowing when to live and when to die.

Ironically, living well often means dying at the wrong time.

Stars must know when to die if they must preserve the thing that makes them stars. Stars who die at the peak of their careers freeze in the imagination of fans who could only invent what would have been had they lived long.

Imagine John F. Kennedy. He died at 46. If he was alive today, he would have been 102 years old. Parachuting out of a fighter jet will not give him respect.

Imagine Bob Marley. He died at 36. If he was alive today, he would have been 64 years old. He would be as anonymous as Jimmy Cliff is today at a reggae Sun Splash.

Imagine Tupac Shakur. He died at 25. If he was alive today, he would have been 37 years old. He would be featured in the Where Are They Now? VH1 Shows.

Martin Luther King Jr. died at 39, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart died at 35, Jesus Christ died at 33, Bruce Lee died at 32, Kurt Cobain, Jim Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison all died at 27, James Dean died at 24 and River Phoenix died at 23.

Elvis died at 42. He would have been 74 today. He was one of those who overstayed and bloated. Over time, the last years of his life which were disaster years were covered by the glorious days. The same will be the fate that will befall Michael Jackson.

If Michael Jackson had died in 1984, just after the “We Are The World” production, he would have been something unimaginable. But he stayed too long and life happened to him. He was humanized. He was made weird by the elements.

If you doubt the importance of knowing when to die, just ask Farrah Fawcett. She died the same day that Michael Jackson died. And by doing so, she was yanked off the front page of all the newspapers of the world.