I really like this one.
I ask myself the same questions once and again. My answers are not very encouraging.
I guess you're being sarcastic when you say that

a few missteps have put us in a bit of trouble.

I think that, as you suggest, we are wired with certain unquenchable thirst or apetites that make it literally impossible to do what we have also been wired to conceive, which makes us the most paradoxical "creation".
Greed, envy, violence, lust, among other human features constantly compete and beat the virtues that are supposed to save us from perpetual darkness.
Whether the soul coexist side by side the mind or exist on a higher dimension, it is irrelevant. Only exceptional people, a sad minority, can give testimony of strong virtuosity through introspection and a life untarnished by human folly.

We keep conceiving perfect worlds, all our artists throughout history have drafted their version of the same utopia, and yet generation after generation we can't materialize one single element of those possible, yet impossible worlds.
We have Joe Biden now promising that if he is elected he'll make curing cancer a reality. Really? How about gun control? or a government without corporate lobbying forcing screw-the-people-decision-making?
I share your anguish. I can't stand this wolrd, but I can't stop thinking it can be different, better, perfect.