We are all joined in the holiness of the mind that God created. I therefore never consider myself one in the silence. I'm 88 and live alone in a four room house surrounded by open space. I have no TV and have always luxuriated in silence. The exterior silence is here. The interior silence is a work in progress.
"Contemplating is receiving." (St. John of the Cross) What we receive in prayer is the Spirit, who makes all creation new, moment by moment. It is the Spirit who rebirths us within the caves of our hearts. The case is a metaphor for this silent withdrawal, this going away to be alone, to listen, to gestate the Spirit, to rebirth ourselves. The reborn self is the child of wisdom born in solitude.